Avoiding Friendly Fire: Constructing Behaviorally-Anchored Rating Scales to Assess Team Cognition in Distributed Mission Training for Close Air Support

Abstract

Distributed Mission Training (DMT), where trainees who are geographically distributed train for common missions using simulators connected via high-speed data networks, has been shown to be an effective training tool, particularly for Air Force operations. The Canadian Forces (CF) are interested in assessing the effectiveness and applicability of DMT for joint (air-land) and coalition missions. To this end, a rating instrument using behaviorally-anchored rating scales (BARS) was designed and trialed at Exercise Northern Goshawk, a distributed Close Air Support (CAS) simulation exercise that involved participants from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada in August 2007. Effective team performance and training is essential in order to avoid friendly fire incidents while conducting CAS. The BARS instrument was thus designed to assess the quality of team coordination and performance at key moments of CAS missions. It is based on a validated Hierarchical Task Analysis of CAS missions as performed by Canadian Forward Air Controllers (FACs) and Pilots, and makes use of the behavioral markers of team cognition breakdowns proposed by Wilson, Salas, Priest and Andrews (2007). Here we describe the process of combining the behavioral markers and the HTA to develop the BARS. We also discuss the results that were obtained with the instrument, the challenges encountered while applying it, and propose future directions for validating and improving it.