Dealing with learner confusion
Managing confusion and surprises
For your learner, confusion and surprises can sometimes be very
helpful, while at other times they can be very unhelpful. This page
will help you understand the role of confusion and surprises in
helping someone gain useful driving experience.
Learner drivers have to consciously think through and apply, in
sequence, all the small parts of even the most basic of driving
tasks, such as pulling out from the kerb or changing lanes.
They can easily get confused. The slightest extra load - such as
the need to make another decision - can cause the surrounding
situation to become a blur to them; their driving will become
clumsy and possibly unsafe.
Unhelpful confusion or surprises can affect safety, make
supervising unpleasant and cause your learner to doubt their
ability. If this happens, question afterwards how you might have
contributed to the confusion.
Professional diving instructors rarely have such problems. They
are trained to break large tasks down into easy-to-learn,
digestible pieces or ‘chunks’ and match the size of the chunks to
the learner driver’s ability. They also know how to help learner
drivers put the pieces together in the correct sequence, and in
situations they can manage.
This is a good reason to have a keys2drive free lesson – your
keys2drive accredited
driving instructor will help you and your learner get
started and coach you through any new or challenging task.
Confusion and surprises can have a useful role in learning
too
When a learner driver has to take responsibility for working
through a confusing situation, it will have greater meaning to them
and help build their problem-solving skills. Provided it’s safe,
invite your learner driver to work out how to do new tasks and
manage new traffic situations on their own. They’ll need to do this
on P plates so why not let them try now while you are still with
them?
Surprises can also have their advantages. Big surprises provide
a real life experience – together you can work out possible ways it
could have been prevented, and use it to connect with the
seriousness of driving.
Tiny surprises let us know when our mind is wandering, our eyes
aren’t looking in the right places, or we are bending the rules.
Without awareness of our errors we become complacent and
over-confident. As your learner gains experience they should
gradually be making fewer big mistakes and be noticing more small
mistakes.
Next: Tips for staying calm in
the car
