Daniel J. Garland

Situation Awareness Analysis and Measurement

Contents: Preface. Part I: Introduction and Overview. M.R. Endsley, Theoretical Underpinnings of Situation Awareness: A Critical Review. R.W. Pew, The State of Situation Awareness Measurement. Part II: Measurement Approaches. G. Klein, Analysis of Situation Awareness From Critical Incident Reports. M.D. Rodgers, R.H. Mogford, B. Strauch, Post Hoc Assessment of Situation Awareness in Air Traffic Control Incidents and Major Aircraft Accidents. D.G. Jones, Subjective Measures of Situation Awareness. H.H. Bell, D.R. Lyon, Using Observer Ratings to Assess Situation Awareness. M.R. Endsley, Direct Measurement of Situation Awareness: Validity and Use of SAGAT. G.F. Wilson, Strategies for Psychophysiological Assessment of Situation Awareness. A.R. Pritchett, R.J. Hansman, Use of Testable Responses for Performance-Based Measurement of Situation Awareness. C.D. Wickens, The Trade-Off of Design for Routine and Unexpected Performance: Implications of Situation Awareness. M.A. Vidulich, Testing the Sensitivity of Situation Awareness Metrics in Interface Evaluations. Part III: Special Topics in Situation Awareness. L.J. Gugerty, W.C. Tirre, Individual Differences in Situation Awareness. C.A. Bolstad, T.M. Hess, Situation Awareness and Aging. W. Shebilske, B.P. Goettl, D.J. Garland, Situation Awareness, Automaticity, and Training. C. Prince, E. Salas, Team Situation Awareness, Errors, and Crew Resource Management: Research Integration for Training Guidance. M.R. Endsley, M.M. Robertson, Training for Situation Awareness in Individuals and Teams.

Pilot Situation Awareness Training in General Aviation

While the majority of research on the topic of situation awareness has been focused on designing better systems, significant interest also exists in finding ways to improve SA through training. This paper describes an ongoing program that is directed at developing programs for training SA in general aviation pilots. Factors that have been found to pose problems for SA in pilots are reviewed and directions are established for creating programs for improving SA through training.

Situation Awareness Problems in General Aviation

Situation awareness (SA) is widely recognized as critical to success in the aviation environment. Most research to date has focused on SA in highly experienced military or commercial airline pilots. Yet, general aviation (GA) pilots, usually far less experienced and trained, fall prey to the vast majority of aviation accidents. Fifty-eight experienced flight instructors completed a survey on SA problems in GA operations. It found a wide range of SA problems across GA pilots at various levels of experience and in all phases of flight, although some factors appear to become less problematic with experience. Areas where problems are the most acute are identified and recommendations are made for improving SA in GA pilots.

Free Flight: Human Factors Implications

There is a real possibility that the air traffic control system in the United States will change radically in the next decade. One vision–“free flight” or “free routing”–is to move most of the responsibility for navigation and separation back to the cockpit and away from ground based air traffic systems. The basic notion of free flight is that each flight would be completely determined by the user, i.e. by some form of airline/pilot combination, and would not need to follow pre-defined airways or altitudes. The airlines would inform the air traffic system of each aircrafts intentions, but would not have to seek any prior air traffic approval. The job of the air traffic system would be to meet the users requirements, but not to suggest what those requirements should be. However, the air traffic system would be expected to collaborate with the airlines to ensure the safe passage of flights and to intervene when aircraft separation requirements are jeopardized or violated. Such a system would bring with it dramatic changes in the roles of all the human members of the aviation system, and as such, would have significant human factors impacts. The goal of this panel will be to identify and discuss some of those issues.

Space Human Factors Engineering Challenges in Long Duration Space Flight

The focus of this panel is on identifying and discussing the critical human factors challenges facing long duration space flight. Living and working aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will build on the experience humans have had to date aboard the Shuttle and MIR. More extended missions, involving lunar and planetary missions to Mars are being planned. These missions will involve many human factors challenges regarding a number of issues on which more research is needed.

Undergraduate Human Factors Curriculum and Introductory Human Factors Course Content

This panel provided a discussion format for six academic institutions to share their Human Factors (HF) curriculum and more specifically, to educate others on how they teach their introductory HF course. Each panelist addressed the following topics regarding their HF curriculum: foundation courses of the departments degree and specific HF courses offered. Then the panelists focused their discussions to their specific introductory HF course: philosophy; text book(s) used; course objectives; course syllabus flow; grading practices; and specific lesson exercises/labs.