The Applied Technology course is actually divided into five courses - Problem Solving, Electricity, Mechanics, Fluid Dynamics and Thermodynamics. This unique organization allows students to emphasize specific areas of study, while still showing the relationship between the different physical forces. The separate quizzes and pretests also allow administrators to evaluate the relative strengths of students in the different disciplines. These courses together comprise over 1,600 pages of curriculum. Organizations that have used the WorkKeys Applied Technology assessment have found that the scores have been surprisingly low. Existing curricula have failed to make significant progress on the assessment. We believe this is to due to factors - 1) the assessment does not allow individual evaluation of skills in the areas of electricity, mechanics, fluid dynamics and thermodynamics, and 2) existing curricula fail to provide the background knowledge necessary to be able to troubleshoot problems in these areas.

KeyTrain's Applied Technology was designed to overcome these problems. KeyTrain allows pre-testing, training, and post-testing in each area independently. The Problem Solving course provides general training in problem-solving techniques. Each of the other courses provides a comprehensive overview of the basic components of each area of technology. These areas of technology are presented in a qualitative, not quantitative fashion. Then each topic is applied in appropriate troubleshooting exercises organized by WorkKeys levels. This overcomes the problem of other WorkKeys Applied Technology courses in that they proceed immediately to problem-solving exercises without ensuring that the student has the appropriate understanding of the technology to begin with. This makes KeyTrain's Applied Technology unmatched.

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