| ID | 155212 |
| Title Proper | Weighing the evidence |
| Other Title Information | the BCISS Iraq HUMINT analytic matrix exercise |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Davies, Philip H J ; Gustafson, Kristian |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | This article examines the Brunel Iraq HUMINT Matrix exercise. The purpose of this approach to intelligence pedagogy is to get participants to think through and work out analytic methods, issues, and potential solutions from first principles and for themselves. Our strategy is to try and fuse training and education learning outcomes, so that students emerge with a technical competence in analytic methods, underpinned by a deeper understanding of the foundations and internal logic shaping those methods. The Iraq Matrix exercise seeks to unpack and examine the nuts and bolts of source evaluation, and to test alternative hypotheses with particular attention to the relationship between the quality of various sources and, the weight of judgements they can or cannot sustain. The ultimate goal is to encourage what is currently fashionably referred to as ‘reflexive practice’, whereby the practitioner reflects critically and self-critically upon how their task works and how they do it, then uses those insights to improve their workplace performance. But not all of our teaching is directed towards practitioners. For those whose aims are scholarly and academic, the aim is to give observers a more visceral understanding of the challenges of the intelligence task they intended to study. Here the intended reflexive practice goal is to encourage an empathy with the workaday challenges facing those in the business of intelligence analysis, and to discourage the observer’s temptation to make facile and simplistic judgements about processes or events. |
| `In' analytical Note | Intelligence and National Security Vol. 32, No.7; Dec 2017: p.905-919 |
| Journal Source | Intelligence and National Security Vol: 32 No 7 |
| Key Words | Iraq ; HUMINT ; BCISS ; Analytic Matrix Exercise |