Back to SA school: contrasting three approaches to situation awareness in the cockpit

Abstract

Situational awareness has received considerable attention in recent years and significant theoretical advances have been made. The advances to date can be categorised in three main schools of thought: psychological, engineering and systems ergonomics schools. We use the perspectives of the three schools to analyse the descent and approach of a McDonnell Douglas MD-80 series described by Hutchins (1995a). We discuss the theoretical contributions of the three schools to the understanding of SA and apply these to the analysis of the MD-80"s descent and approach. Finally, we discuss how the different views advocated by the three schools give rise to different approaches to support SA. We argue that while the psychological and engineering approaches each give valuable insight into the phenomenon neither give a complete explanation of SA. We therefore dispute that only the systems ergonomics perspective, in combining the individual, artefacts in the environment and interaction between these, offer a full explanation.

Momentary fitting in a fluid environment: A grounded theory of triage nurse decision making

“…For example, the triage RN has to become aware of a patient with chest pain, interpret the chest pain as a possible sign of a myocardial infarction and understand the potential outcomes for the patient, and finally make decisions based on the anticipated trajectory such as the need for time critical interventions. Endsley's model has been critiqued as being too focused on SA as an individual phenomenon (Sorensen, Stanton, & Banks, 2011;Stanton et al, 2010) and being too information processing orientated (Chiappe, Strybel, & Vu, 2012;Stanton et al, 2010).…”

“…Three common schools of thought describing SA have been identified; the psychological approach, the engineering approach, and the system ergonomics approach (Sorensen et al, 2011;Stanton et al, 2010). The psychological view holds that SA exists in the individual's mind.…”

“…The psychological view holds that SA exists in the individual's mind. An example of this is Endsley's (1995) model of SA (Sorensen et al, 2011;Stanton et al, 2010). The engineering approach adopts an inthe-world conception of SA as residing solely in external structures such as, for instance, instruments in a cockpit.…”

A Review of Situation Awareness Assessment Approaches in Aviation Environments

“…The simulation was halted at four randomly chosen times, and the subjects were inquired to respond to SAGAT queries without looking at the displays or referring to other information. Alternatively, Sorensen et al [72] discussed three theoretical frameworks including psychology, engineering and systems ergonomics for understanding and enhancing a pilot's SA. Although psychology and engineering provide valuable contributions to understanding SA, they both do not consider the interaction between the individuals, artefacts, and the context within which they exist.…”

Quantitative Analysis of Situation Awareness (QASA): modelling and measuring situation awareness using signal detection theory

“…Models of SA tend to consider SA within three levels-of-analysis (Sorensen, Stanton, & Banks, 2011;Stanton et al, 2017). The first level-of-analysis considers SA to be a psychological phenomenon maintained by the cognitive processes (particularly working memory) of the individual.…”