How Have Changes in Technology Impacted Transportation Mechanics

Gordon H McGregor
University of Ontario Institute of Technology

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Technology Impacts on Vehicle Repair Mechanics

Table of Contents
Abstract .. 5
Introduction 6
Skilled Trades Students 6
Essential Skills Ontario 7
Learning and Literacy.. 7
Literature Review... 8
Types of Training Changes. 9
Challenges Brought About By Changes In Technology. 9
Impacts on Education and Skills Development. 10
Research Questions 10
Rationale 11
Theoretical Framework.. 11
Methodology................................................................................................................................. 11
Data Collection and Analysis..... 11
Template Analysis. 11
Defining Codes.. 11
Coding 12
Findings. 14
Coding Overview... 15
Discussion. 16
The Impacts on Education. 17
Industry and Government.. 18
Impacts on Diagnosing Faults .. 18
Differentiating Apprentices from Journey Persons 19

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Technology Impacts on Vehicle Repair Mechanics

Summary, Implications for Further Research/ Practice......................................................... 20

References.................................................................................................................................... 22

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List of Tables
Table 1.. 14

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List of Figures
Figure 1 10

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Abstract
Technology is changing the way motor vehicles are being produced used and serviced.
Understanding what studies have been undertaken to address the changes that technology has
brought to the motor vehicle repair industry and the findings of the impact that these changes has
had was of interest. A meta-analysis collected data on the impact to the training of the skilled
trades as well as the impact that the diagnostic and repair equipment has on this group. Research
was undertaken to see to what extent learning environments and learning requirements were
affected by the changes in technology. This study analysed 39 papers and articles to determine to
what extent changes in technology have impacted transportation mechanics in the knowledge and
skills that they require. The dominant themes of this paper are a combination of; technology
change in the vehicles, in the diagnostic and repair equipment tied with the change in skills and
knowledge that vehicle mechanics need as a result of the technology change. Software changes in
diagnosing vehicle faults is a dominant theme when addressing impacts on diagnostic equipment,
caused by changes in technology.

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Chapter 1 Introduction
The transportation industry has been impacted by the introduction of American
government fuel and emissions standards which have caused the motor vehicle manufacturers to
meet ever increasingly stringent fuel and emission standards. In the book Computerized Engine
Controls a reference is made to a requirement of an increased use of digital technology in engine
fueling controls brought about by the standards. Hatch (2009) states that a more precise way to
control engine functions was required. According to Hatch the vehicle manufacturing industry
adopted digital technology by the late seventies and by 1981 the vehicle manufacturing industry
was using comprehensive computerized engine controls. During the 1980s General Motors
produced more computers than anyone else in the world and one half of the worlds supply of
computer parts (p. 44). With this large introduction of digital technology onto motor vehicles, a
need to diagnose and repair digital technology was created.
The purpose of this study was to discover to what extent research has been done to
understand the impacts on the motor vehicle repair mechanics. The impacts of interest are
changes in the essential skills required and what are the causes of these changes. Is the change in
on- board technology or changes in diagnostic and repair equipment at the root?
The questions in the research address essential skills in the skilled trades. The focus of the
research was to examine how the trades have been impacted, in learning and working, due to the
changes that the increased use of technology has brought.
Skilled Trades Students
Skilled trades students are not the same as traditional higher education students.
Apprentices tend to be adult learners who Klien- Collins (2011) notes that colleges and
universities are recognizing that adult learners have different needs and face different barriers

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than the traditional students (p.4). Adults returning to school may face financial and personal
time availability issues that the traditional younger students do not. This could have an impact on
these students having the time and resources to keep current in what are the changes in
technology. For this research skilled trades will also be referred to as vehicle repair mechanics or
simply repair mechanics.
Essential Skills Ontario
Essential Skills Ontario is a program run by the Government of Ontario that seeks to raise
awareness of what are essential skills and how a person would acquire these skills. There are nine
essential skills listed and they include: reading, writing, document use, numeracy, computer use,
thinking, oral communication, working with others and continuous learning (Government of
Ontario, 2014). The logic for creating Essential Skills Ontario is the changes that have taken place
have placed a greater essential skills requirement on the modern workforce. Governments and
industry are aware of the rise in required skill levels that a modern workforce requires. The
concept and practice of adult literacy has evolved over the years in response to cultural,
economic, social and technological pressures (Government of Ontario, 2014). This is important
as this enquiry looked to see how defined essential skills are for the skilled trades.
Consideration was given to defining what trades are in the sense of historical, current and
future timelines. The current and future timelines will consider the impact of technology on the
trades.
Learning and Literacy
Information literacy has become important in all areas of the modern economy. Computers
are imbedded in most if not all of the tools, devices and appliances that we interact with daily. A
prime example is the vehicles that most of us have and use on a daily basis. Depending on the

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vehicle there can be more than 30 computers, each tasked with a purpose and all communicating
through a central hub. Abel (2000) points out, that organizations found their environments were
subject to rapid change and that their survival depended on being able to adapt to these changes.
This includes a workforce that has the same capabilities to adapt (p. 33). Vehicle repair mechanics
are required to diagnose and repair the complex digital technology that current motor vehicles are
equipped with. Repair mechanics are required to adapt to the changes in the environments in
which they work in order to support the organizational structure of their employment or trade
practices.
Chapter 2 Literature Review
Apprenticeship was strictly until the 19th century an agreement between a master and
apprentice. Formal school training is a more recent addition to apprentice training. The
introduction of in class training placed some limitations on how apprentices learned. The focus
became one where problem solving was less hands on and more text book orientated. Collins,
Brown and Newman (1987) reviewed the changes to apprenticeship in industrialised countries
and found that the evolution of instructional methods have affected the skills required to learn
(p.1). Training delivery and content both at the apprentice and journey person levels has been
affected by the changes in technology used in the transportation industry.
With changes in technology and content delivery methods in the trades, there is a shift in
the types of essential skills that this population requires. The skilled trades have transitioned from
strictly workplace learning to include in class learning and are shifting again to include distance
and blended learning models, with an emphasis on acquiring higher level thinking skills. There
are now skills required that were unimagined even a few decades previously.

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Types of training changes

Digital technology has allowed the delivery methods of content to evolve; there are
multiple platforms available. Training can be synchronous, asynchronous or include elements of
both, where students study using videos, Mp4 audio and text and then attend a common in class
time to reinforce the learning material. An example of this is the heavy equipment manufacturer
Caterpillar, using instructional videos posted online for training purposes. Information on
products and services is easily found as well as the training videos. Each video provides
individual subject training such as spark plug maintenance and lubrication point locations
(Caterpillar, 2015). Additionally the Canadian Automotive Repair and Service Council has
developed and delivers training for repair mechanics through a program called Interactive
Distance Learning. A case study of this program was undertaken by the Conference Board of
Canada (2005) that found repair mechanics were better able to diagnose complex problems as
opposed to an often used method of trial and error (p. 1). This would suggest that a change in the
type of training results in a higher successful diagnosis rate for this group.
Challenges brought about by changes in technology
A challenge for repair mechanics is vast array of vehicle system failures due to the
complexity of the on-board electronics. A study for General Motors looked at the challenges
faced by the repair persons because faults may not be duplicated when the vehicle is in the
service bay. Zhang (2009) states that vehicle ECS failure modes tend to be diversified. Different
faults appear under different, specific conditions that are not shared by many vehicles. Even for
the same vehicle, the problems customers experience on the road may not be duplicated when the
vehicles go to the service bays, due to the absence of the triggering conditions. Therefore, there
are a significant number of service reports stating no trouble found. It is hard for service

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technicians to accumulate experience to diagnose these faults (p. 288). Many of the articles and
papers reviewed indicate that the level of complexity of the vehicle systems is having an impact
on the level of training and knowledge that the repair mechanics are required to have; this study
for General Motors is an example of this.
Impacts on education and skills development
In a working paper, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
(2009) states that over the past decades digital technologies have deeply transformed the way
individuals learn, communicate, work and generally function in society (p. 5). The increased
sophistication of vehicles, brought about by the extensive use of on- board computers, has caused
repair mechanics to adapt to how they learn and perform their job tasks. Learning may be
delivered by other providers and away from the institutions that have normally been the delivery
providers. Manufacturers are increasingly providing mandatory brand specific training using their
own facilities. Liang (2008) suggests that diagnosing faults may be done through distance using
computers or with advanced digital modeling methods using 3D images to allow the learners to
experience diagnostic and repair methods virtually (p. 29). This idea became more prevalent as
this research progressed.
Research Questions
The questions asked in this research came about from the idea that motor vehicles are
becoming very complex machines, with many on- board computers controlling simple and
complex functions. Hatch (2009) states that to be effective, all service technicians need skills in
electrical diagnosis and repair (p. 1). From this the following questions were developed to guide
in the collection of articles.

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1. What impacts are there to the transportation skilled trades caused by changes in digital
technology?
2. Have the training methods been impacted by changes in technology?
3. Have the tooling requirements been impacted by changes in technology?
Rationale
There is a need to understand how the inclusion of on board digital technology in cars and
trucks has impacted how the diagnosis and repair equipment has had on the skilled trades tasked
to work with the tools. Developing a better understanding of what research has been done in
discovering what the changes in technology has had on repair mechanics will help in proposing
ideas of further research. New technology and education requirements are considered together as
each will impact the other. Developing new training and education content and delivery methods
may be a requirement as a result of the adaptation of digital technology in motor vehicles. The
research that was undertaken was to find what and how much information is available that
addresses the change in knowledge and skills that repair mechanics require due to these changes.
Theoretical Framework
The major theory that will create the framework for the research will be Cognitive
Apprenticeship (CA). CA incorporates ideas presented by learning theories such as
Constructivism and Situated Learning. Collins (1990) writes that cognitive apprenticeship
employs the modeling, coaching and fading paradigm of apprenticeship training but with an
emphasis on the cognitive rather than the physical skills (p.121). As the student gains the required
skills the master moves ever increasingly into the background. This theory holds that masters of a
skill often fail to take into account the implicit processes involved in carrying out complex skills
when they are teaching novices.

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Figure 1.

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The dependent variable is the Skilled Transportation Trades.

The independent variables are a review of learning in the skilled trades, awareness of
teaching methods and an awareness of the need for mastery of using digital technology to
diagnose and repair current computerized motor vehicles. The indicators are the foundations of
CA that have been presented in paragraph one of the Theoretical Framework section.
Chapter 3 Methodology
A review of literature based upon the core enquiry questions used qualitative research to
find studies that referenced technology and the impact it has on the motor vehicle repair industry.
There was an emphasis on the impacts to the repair mechanics either through changes in cognitive
skills and training requirements.
Scholarly and industry studies and articles were reviewed and these include the
stakeholders involved in the manufacture, fault diagnosis and repair of the faults. Where possible,
manufacturers were defined as being original equipment manufacturer of vehicles and the
manufacturer of the diagnosis and repair equipment. There was an interest to discover if there
were studies looking at the impact of multiple types of technology changes. This would have a
greater impact on repair mechanics who work in non-manufacturer sanctioned environments.
The intent of the research was to find to what extent repair mechanics are impacted by the
introduction of digital technology in vehicles, in diagnostic and repair equipment and to the
required education.
Data Collection and Analysis
The data collection was done over a period of three months in the Fall of 2014 using
mainly electronic sources from scholarly libraries. In order to narrow the search results the search
criteria settings were checked to scholarly articles available online. Using appropriate words

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related to the search was used to narrow searches to less than 500 results. Initially 174 results
were considered. Narrowing the results to the final 39 was accomplished by applying the created
codes that more closely aligned with the questions.
Template Analysis
Au (2007) referred to his use of a specific form of qualitative metasynthesis known as
template analysis (p. 264). In a comparison between grounded theory and template analysis the
Cassell (2004) summarized the method used for this enquiry In contrast template analysis is, on
the whole a more flexible technic with fewer specified procedures, permitting researchers to tailor
it to match their own requirements (p. 256). This was a useful method for this research in order
to keep a certain amount of flexibility for the possibly varied data sources that were used.
Defining Codes
Cassell (2004) explains coding Put simply a code is a label attached to a section of text
to index it as relating to a theme or issue in the data which the researcher has identified as
important to his or her interpretation (p. 264). An interpretation of coding is placing identifiers
on text that allows me to see the relationship to my research questions that the selected text has.
It was the practice of the coding where relationships of text to the questions became clear.
The data set consists of 39 qualitative studies and reports. After careful consideration it
was decided to include four papers from the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), five
Government of Canada reports as well as one research report from the Canadian Apprenticeship
Forum. The initial hesitation was caused by the fact that these are not peer reviewed articles.
Consideration was given to the fact that these sources of information were relevant to this
research and could be easily verified.

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The initial data set consisted of a total of one hundred and seventy four papers. This data
search was completed in January, 2015 using the UOIT Library extensively and Google Scholar
to a limited degree. The UOIT library search filter was used and drew from peer reviewed articles
from a time period from 2005 to 2015. This rather large collection of data was reviewed and
narrowed to come to a data set of 39 studies and reports. Since data from around the world was
considered, terminology was an initial problem. Using the term mechanics led to search results
that addressed applied mechanics or addressed mechanical engineers as mechanics. A term that
provided universal success results was automobility. This was a term that was not the least
familiar to me before this undertaking.
Coding
After completing the creation of the questions for the research the collected articles were
then reviewed again to specifically identify what contribution they will make to this research.
Based upon the questions being asked codes were created to assist in clarifying the contribution
that each paper or article would make. The defining of the codes allowed for a continued
narrowing of focus through this filtering of the data set. Not all of the data specifically referred to
skilled trades but all of the retained data has some focus on the impact that digital technology has
on the transportation industry with regards to training and skills acquisition and development as
well as changes in diagnostic and repair equipment.
The impact on was the qualifier for each of the codes created. Three things are impacted
and they are; impacts on training, impacts on skilled trades and impacts on equipment. This start
was then the basis for the ultimate seven codes created. These are as follows:

Technology having an impact on the required or type of training. RTT

Technology having direct impacts on mechanics. DIM

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Technology having an impact on the required diagnostic equipment. RDE

Is the paper a government or industry report. GIR

Papers addressing changes in technology. CIT

Articles addressing specifically apprentices APP

Articles addressing specifically journeypersons JOU

A differentiation was made between apprentices and journeypersons to see if there were
any impacts caused by technology specifically affecting one of these groups. The idea being to
see if any of the research addressed if either group may have a greater or lesser impact on them
than the other group. An example would be young apprentices may be impacted by DT to a lesser
extent than a possibly older journeyperson. In cases where the article made no differentiation
between the groups than the code direct impact on mechanics (DIM) was applied.

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Table 1.
Research Articles and Codes
Article

Codes

Akinnuli, 2014
Anastassova, Burkhart, 2009
Azarian, Siadat, 2012
Bogliacino, Vivarelli, 2005
Brown, Pyke, Steenhof, 2010
Canadian Apprenticeship Forum, 2014
Center for Automotive Research, 2011
Conference Board of Canada, 2005
Correia, Wolf, 2009
DiBello, 2010
Edvardsson, 2010
Eisinger, 2008
Ertmer, 2010
Eyer, 2008
Filev, Gusikhin, Rychtyckyj, 2007
Hawker, 2011
Hessler, 2008
Hessler, 2010
Hwan- Joo, Jai- Joon, Kim, 2012
Liang, 2009
Liang, 2010
Mohammadpour, Grigoriadis, 2013
Pollitt, 2006
Ryan, 2009
Schneider, 2012
Service Canada, 2014
Service Canada, 2014
Service Canada, 2015
Shah, 2009
Shaw, McAndrew, Araujo2008
Shuttleworth, 2013
Smith, 2009
Statistics Canada, 2015
Statistics Canada, 2015
Torney, Herrmann, Dreder, 2010
Trego, 2010
Venkatesh, Broy, Krueger, 2010
Venkatram, Gantt, Rychlinski, Edwards, 2011

CIT, DIM, RDE

CIT, DIM, RTT
CIT, DIM, RDE, RTT
CIT, DIM, RDE, RTT
CIT, DIM, RDE, RTT
APP, CIT, DIM, GIR, JOU,RDE, RTT
CIT, GIR, RTT
CIT, DIM, GIR, JOU, RDE, RTT
CIT, RDE
CIT, DIM, JOU, RTT
CIT, DIM, RDE, RTT
CIT, DIM, RDE, RTT
CIT, RTT
APP
CIT
DIM
CIT, GIR, RDE
CIT, GIR, RDE
CIT
CIT, DIM, RDE, RTT
APP, CIT, DIM, RDE
CIT, RDE
JOU, RTT
RTT
DIM
CIT, GIR, JOU
CIT, GIR, JOU
CIT, GIR, JOU
CIT
APP, RTT
CIT, GIR, RDE
RTT
GIR, JOU
GIR, JOU
CIT, DIM, RTT
CIT, GIR, RDE
CIT
CIT, RDE

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Chapter 4. Findings
The findings of the research indicated that changes in technology are the dominant theme as
shown by the coding. This may seem simplistic at first but applying code pairing followed by
theme triplets to the changes in technology guided the research to understand where these changes
impacted the motor vehicle industry.
Coding Overview
The dominant theme found in the literature was changes in technology (CIT). The
majority of the papers contained this theme. Articles that were included but did not focus on the
changes in technology were still important as they had a theme of the repair industry requiring
higher education while not specifically pointing to an area of impact due to specific technology
changes.
21 articles referred to changes in technology having a direct impact on mechanics. This
means that 53% of the papers referred to changes in technology having a direct impact on vehicle
mechanics. The papers were reviewed for dominant themes of how the change in technology
impacted mechanics. One paper addressed in specific the impact caused by hardware changes to a
vehicle. Five articles addressed an impact on mechanics because of changes in technology of
diagnostic tools. 15 articles had a dominate theme of the impacts on mechanics because of an
increase in technical knowledge.
The dominate theme triplets are CIT, DIM and RTT. Of the 39 papers or articles 11
contained all of these themes. Six theme triplets included the codes CIT, DIM and RDE. Six
papers or articles contained CIT, DIM, RDE, and RTT.
Of the 39 papers, 19 were coded as technology having an impact on the required or type of
training (RTT). 17 of these papers were coded as having a direct impact on mechanics (DIM) and/

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or having a direct impact on journeypersons (JOU), as well as apprentices (APP). Two of the
included papers did not reference my study group of skilled trades but referenced impacts to
technical training requirements.
There are 12 papers that specifically address diagnostic and repair equipment. 10 articles
addressed the impacts on mechanics as well as the impacts on the repair and diagnostic
equipment. Nine articles addressed the impacts on training, the impacts on mechanics as well as
the impacts on the equipment.
28 of the papers addressed changes in technology and of those 13 addressed impacts on
training, impacts on mechanics and impacts on equipment. 15 papers were coded as having a
change in technology and an impact on mechanics.
As stated before there are 12 reports or articles produced by government or industry
research groups. Of these five are Government of Canada reports. These were included in order to
review what the Government is saying about the training and skills required by the skilled trades.
Included in this group five articles have been included that address particular examples of
technology in diagnostic and repair equipment solely. One article or study by the Canadian
Apprenticeship Forum was coded with all of the codes. The last was a case study done by the
Conference Board of Canada on the impacts of interactive distance education on the skilled
trades.

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Chapter 5 Discussion
As part of the research the data was reviewed to find common themes and interesting and
even surprising results. This is reflected when a review of the impact on changes to the diagnostic
and repair equipment was done. Various code combinations are looked at in this discussion.
The impacts on education
The impacts on vehicle mechanics as well as the level of education and training they
require is well documented from the current research. As noted in the findings, change in
technology is addressed in 30 of the 39 articles, papers or websites. The majority of the findings
addressed computerization of motor vehicles and the need for repair mechanics to become
proficient in the language and knowledge of computers. Computer orientated control language is
now being used at the service and diagnosis level of the vehicle industry. By referring back to the
coding the dominant code pairing and theme triplets there is an indication that computer skills are
becoming a dominant skill for this group of workers. An excerpt taken from Intelligent Systems
in the Automotive Industry: Applications and Trends, provides a description of the type of
language that is now being applied the vehicle service and repair industry. Gusikhin (2007) writes
fuzzy logic controllers take advantage of the human knowledge of the control behavior. The
control is described through the collection of rules in the form of If- Then statements (p. 148).
This is an example of the type of language that is being used in explaining how systems operate in
modern motor vehicles that repair mechanics have to be proficient in diagnosing and repairing.
An impact on repair mechanics is in the change in language used; away from strictly
mechanical based terms to ever more use of computer based terminology. This has been an
observation from reviewing many of the documents used in this research. Service Canada

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continues this theme in the website description of skills required by vehicle mechanics by stating
that Automotive service technicians need a broad range of computer skills to diagnosis and
repair sophisticated electronic vehicle systems. In fact, they are not able to perform key job tasks
without these skills (Service Canada). Both industry and governments seem to have an aligned
understanding of this requirement.
Industry and government
12 of the references had the code for industry or government applied, of these 8 addressed
the need for higher level skills required by repair mechanics or apprentices due to the impact
brought about changes in digital technology. Research by the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum
(2014) noted that the computer skills of journeypersons are identified as the skills most requiring
improvement in light of technological change (p. 3).
In a description of truck and coach technicians skills requirements the Service Canada
web site refers to the complexity of modern trucks and the introduction of digital technology in
tracking servicing. Technology in the workplace further affects the complexity of tasks related to
the essential skills required for this occupation. Not only has the sophisticated electronic circuitry
of vehicles increased the complexity of wiring schematics and other diagrams, but workers also
need the skills to use increasingly complex software applications, such as fleet maintenance
software (Service Canada, 2015). This indicates that the vehicle service and repair industry and
governments have a similar understanding of the need for higher digital technology skills training
for the repair mechanics.
Impacts on diagnosing faults
16 of the 39 articles included coding for changes in the required diagnostic equipment,
with a majority of 11 articles referring to changes in the software used in diagnosing faults in

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motor vehicles. As an example of this Liang (2009) presents in a paper a troubleshooting task
model of automobile chassis is proposed. It integrates a task implementation method with virtual
interactive techniques (p.712). In addition research Liang (2010) presented a study that
developed a Web based support for troubleshooting automotive refrigeration systems (p.32). The
other seven papers supported the example approaches in defining ways to diagnose or predict
faults using Web based programing including virtual reality. Azarian (2012) presents a model of
what he has called off board diagnostics (p.131). This is where the vehicles are submitting data
back to the manufacturers wirelessly.
With rapidly changing technology in vehicles comes the need to better align service
strategies with product development. Jueling (2010) argues that due to the changes in vehicle
servicing brought about by digital technology Road Mapping needs to be implemented (p.100).
This refers to an integration of service and technology strategies in a plan that ties the future
servicing of vehicles with the design process. In summary the author presents a way to better
connect the customer oriented servicing with the product oriented manufacturing.
The remaining five articles or papers presented changes to the actual diagnostic and repair
equipment.
Differentiating apprentices from journey persons.
By including codes that differentiate between journey persons and apprentices allowed
this research to understand if there is research that addresses whether 1 group is more adaptable to
the changes brought by technology. There may be some bias toward older journey persons based
on ideas that they are not able to adapt to this change. DiBello (2008) in a study done on the New
York City Transit repair mechanics observed biased views by management and trainers where;
experienced workers are seen as an impediment to change, new hires are targeted for technology

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training, schools and researchers operate with the assumption that is a generic set of new basic
skills that enable workers to use technologies. This results in people with rich hands-on
knowledge and poor school skills are passed over for advanced technology training or are the first
to be eliminated. When training does occur it emphasizes not what workers know, but what they
do not know, such as how to use a mouse or basic PC training and data entry skills(p.64). This
would suggest that there is a bias towards younger workers. Having coded for journeypersons
separately from apprentices brought the preceding article to attention. Of the 40 articles or papers
this was the only one that discussed the differences in perceived abilities in working with digital
technology between apprentices and journey persons. Two other papers addressed apprentices
specifically, but addressed the need for recruitment and that they will need specialized training
not required before.
Chapter 6 Summary, implications for further research/ practice
Using a form of qualitative metasynthesis, this study reviewed the findings of 39 papers
that addressed changes in technology in the motor vehicle service and repair industry having
impacts on repair mechanics either because of changes in diagnostic and repair equipment or
change to the level of cognitive ability of the repair mechanic.
19 papers addressed changes in technology having a direct impact on training of vehicle
repair mechanics. These 19 papers agreed that new teaching and learning requirements have come
about due to the complexity of current vehicles. The people tasked with servicing and repairing
these vehicles are required to use higher level cognitive abilities compared to the skills required
prior to the introduction of complex digital technology.

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The studies that addressed the impacts on training tended to be focused on what those
impacts are. Specific changes to training content and delivery methods are presented in the 19
papers.
Only one study differentiated between apprentices and journey persons, indicating that the
trade as a whole is being impacted with little differentiation between the two groups. The one
study that did differentiate came to a conclusion that there is a bias against older journey persons
when a training situation involves digital technology. With this singular differentiation, this study
has to conclude that apprentices and journey persons are being impacted by changes in
technology equally.
Of the 16 articles that included coding for changes in the required diagnostic equipment,
11 or a majority of the articles referred to changes in software used to diagnose faults.
Possibilities of vehicles communicating with the manufacturers lead to bypassing human
intervention in diagnosing vehicle faults. The implications this will have on the repair mechanics
needs to be studied further.
Currently repair mechanics are requiring higher levels of training to work in an
environment that has become as complex as most aircraft. The majority of articles that presented
changes to diagnostic equipment are in fact presenting ways to diagnose vehicle faults without the
vehicle mechanic having direct intervention, such as plugging in a scan tool. This may indicate
that the vehicles are becoming too complex for the traditional repair mechanics to diagnose. The
evolution of this method would possibly relegate these people to repairing as directed from an
offsite source.

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