Wen-Chin Li
Department of Psychology and Social Work, National Defense University
Don Harris
Department of Systems Engineering and Human Factors of Cranfield University, United Kingdom
Chih-Chao Hsieh
ROC Air Force Tactical Evaluation Center ,Taiwan
Military pilots, in addition to carrying out tactical missions and flying the aircraft, have to solve unexpected and ill-defined problems with only partial information available and while under hostile environment. Flying a high-technology fighter aircraft with high stakes and under high g-force is not only an issue of skilled psychomotor performance but an also aeronautical decision-making involving situation awareness, a choice amongst alternatives and assessment of risk within a limited-time frame.
It was found there were 42% of accidents in the ROC Air Force and 45% of accidents in the US Air Force related to decision errors by applying the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS). There is a need to think about why pilots always had decision-making problem around the world. It is a valuable research topic to improve the quality of pilots’ in-flight decision-making.
Many researchers have suggested that ADM is trainable (Endsley, 1997; Jensen, 1997; Jensen & Hunter, 2002; Klein, 1997; Prince & Salas, 1993). However, Orasanu (1993) suggested that generic training techniques to improve all-purpose decision-making skills would not be successful. She suggested that different component skills were involved when making six different basic types of decisions. Li & Harris (2005) undertook a study to identify the best ADM mnemonic-based methods for training military pilot’s decision-making. From the results of this study it was found that SHOR (Wohl, 1981) was rated as being the best ADM mnemonic in time-limited and critical, urgent situations. DESIDE (Murray, 1997) was regarded as superior for knowledge-based decisions which required more comprehensive considerations but also had more time available to do so.
This research applied the theories of Aeronautical decision-makingand ADM mnemonics for improving the quality of military pilots’ in-flight decision-making. To optimize the effectiveness of decision-making training, it is suggested that it will be necessary to deliver instruction using both the SHOR and DESIDE ADM mnemonic-based methods in different scenarios and also provide advice concerning which approach is the most suitable in which situations in the tactical and urgent environment.
Keywords：Aeronautical Decision-making (ADM), Focus Group, ADM Training Mnemonic