Situation Awareness as a Predictor of Performance for En Route Air Traffic Controllers

Abstract

Air traffic control instructors controlled simulated traffic while a variety of techniques for determining situation awareness (SA) were implemented. SA was assessed using a self-report measure (the Situation Awareness Rating Technique, or SART), a query method that removed information on the plan-view display (the Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique, or SAGAT), a query technique that did not have a memory component (the Situation-Present Assessment Method, or SPAM), and the detection of errors integrated into the scenarios (implicit performance). We used these measures of SA together with a measure of workload, NASA Task Load Index (TLX), to predict two different performance measures: (1) an over-the-shoulder, subjective assessment by a subject matter expert (SME), and (2) a count of the number of control actions remaining to be performed at the end of the scenario. The SME evaluation was predicted by workload and the controller’s appreciation of both the present and the future. The remaining-actions count (RAC) was predicted by the controller’s appreciation of the future. In fact, an appreciation of the present led to poorer RAC scores: the better the participant was at answering questions about the present or the better he or she understood the present situation, the larger the number of actions that remained to be performed. The results have implications for the relationships among workload, SA, and performance, and suggest limitations on several of the measures currently proposed as SA techniques. The results confirm that future versus present is an important conceptual difference in ATC. More important, they suggest that a controller who remains overly focused on the present may do so at the expense of the future.