Measuring Anticipatory Monitoring Skills Using a Crew Briefing Task

Abstract

Inadequate monitoring has contributed to aviation accidents and incidents. One potentially useful approach for mitigation is to identify the skills and knowledge needed for effective anticipatory monitoring and improve their training and assessment. As part of a larger project, we characterized a set of skills and knowledge, developed training and assessment measures, and conducted a study measuring monitoring performance before and after training. We summarize the study and then focus on an assessment task of preparing the Top of Descent briefing. This operationally relevant task requires anticipation and monitoring skills to recognize potential challenges to monitor and manage the flight path on descent. We describe our task development, performance coding, and the task results. We found that pilots included more information helpful for managing the descent flight path after the tutorial. We discuss challenges and benefits of developing operationally relevant tasks in a low-fidelity (laptop) instructional setting.