In general, flight instructors are not going to get this detailed with you for the practical training And tend to just concentrate on what you need to do in landing a particular airplane, but I will offer this analysis for what it’s worth.

Officially landing is the means by which an aircraft transitions from flying to being supported on the ground on its landing gear.  The techniques to do so vary from aircraft type to aircraft type, but all typically involve the aircraft making a very gentle descent towards the ground, thence contacting the ground, mooring mast, etc. on its landing gear and remaining there with the weight of the aircraft transferred from the wings, rotors, or other lifting surfaces, to the landing gear.

For airplanes, gliders, and other fixed wing aircraft, this process typically involves two stages: an approach to a runway followed by a roundout.  The approach segment involves flying the aircraft along a specific path through space guided either by visual reference to the ground or electronic instruments in the case of an instrument approach. Approaches can be straight in, circling, or involve a traffic pattern. The goal of any approach is to line the airplane up with the runway centerline along with a vertical guidance at the minimum airspeed needed to enter the roundout phase.  This speed is typically 1.3*Vso or the approx ~30% faster than the stalling speed of the airplane in the landing configuration.  Approaches will either terminate in a roundout, a go-around for a traffic pattern missed approach procedure for an instrument approach.  Go-Arounds and Missed Approach Procedures Involve terminating the rate of descent to the airport or runway, applying power, and configuring the aircraft for a maximum rate of climb to either re-enter a traffic pattern or fly an instrument course to set up for another instrument approach.

If the termination of the approach and a go-around or missed approach is not needed, the next phase will be the roundout.  The goals of the roundout (sometimes called flare) are:

1) Arrest the rate of descent of the aircraft toward the runway about 1-2 feet above the runway
2) Place the aircraft into the correct attitude so it
3) Makes the appropriate contact, aligned properly with the runway,  on its landing gear
4) Accomplishes all this while covering the minimum amount of runway without excessive ‘floating’

All non-VTOL fixed wing aircraft are landed in this manner.  The exact methods and techniques for doing so will vary between aircraft type to aircraft type and depending on the runway type, landing gear on the aircraft, etc.

That’s all great for a textbook, but human beings are three-dimensional creatures who experience life very differently than a textbook description.  Pilots are artists, because flying an airplane is a function of the right side of the brain.  We think about this problem specially, taking visual cues mainly as notes by which we can determine whether we are or are not performing this task correctly.   And a generic textbook description is not going to cover that.   How, for example, do you determine how high you are off the ground in the flare?  While propwash effects are a factor in landing a small trainer airplane, it is not a factor in flying a jet, how do you anticipate the length of a flare so the aircraft touches down where you want it to.  What are the flight characteristics of the airplane when landing during gusty winds, or crosswind conditions?  The process of controlling the airplane itself is an artform. 

Given all the variations that go into landing an airplane it’s difficult to create a deterministic models as you put it for getting good landings.  But there are some recommendations.

* On a good VFR day in the traffic pattern, try to envision the traffic pattern itself, including all legs of the traffic pattern in the sky around your airport, then make the airplane fly that path. It sounds a little crazy but it does provide good guidance for where you need to be and visualize where you need to be in order to make the airplane do what you wanted to do. 

* Good landings all start with good traffic patterns, and good consistency is the key to good traffic patterns. One of the best ways to achieve consistency is knowing what power settings for what configurations of the aircraft you will need to achieve a certain rate of descent, airspeed, etc. 

* If you’re operating out of an airport where traffic is light, or if the tower will grant this at a Tower airport, asked to fly a larger traffic pattern, and make notes on a knee board of the power settings, trim, flap configurations, etc. that you need to achieve stabilized flight at certain airspeed.  As an example, flying a C172 in the downwind, you not that the airplane, flaps up and trimmed just slightly nose down of the takeoff mark requires a power setting of 1900 RPM to maintain level flight at 85 KIAS.  Note these metrics for all legs of a traffic pattern and then fly them that way in the airplane. If you have trouble remembering those things on the go, take a session where you chair fly in front of a cockpit poster doing all the steps of a traffic pattern, setting power, configuration, trim, etc. until you have it memorized and it becomes second nature.  If you do this you will find the airplane is very controllable in all legs of a traffic pattern and any kind of adjustments, only require slight changes in power and/or trim.  I especially like practicing long final approaches this way and this advice is indispensable when transitioning to a new airframe.

* Following the steps I described above, then start practicing picturing the pattern as a transparent path in the sky and make the airplane fly that path. You will find it reduces a lot of errors in position, altitude, and speed if you do it that way.

* Base to final turns can be a struggle for students, often times causing the student to overshoot or undershoot the runway centerline.  To guard against this, on base, project runway centerline out to a point where it intersects your base flight path and prepare to turn inside of that corner. You should line up right on final as you roll out if you do this right.

Timing the start of a round out and flying the round out can be more of an art than a science.  It’s a matter of hand-eye coordination combined with kinesthetic fuel for the aircraft.  Rod Machado’s runway expansion method works well for light trainers, but this is just something you gain from a lot of time in practice. If you’re making bad landings on the way you’re pretty normal.