Examining Shared Mental Models of Air Traffic Controllers: What do they entail and what is shared?

Air traffic control is a very dynamic and complex team task which requires a high degree of coordination and information exchange. Future modifications foreseen in Air Traffic Management will result in more automation, pre-flight planning and electronic communication. This novel situation increasingly requires controllers to anticipate information requirements and meet team and task demands in circumstances when time is of the essence. Shared mental models enable a team to take appropriate actions and fulfil teammates' needs by ensuring a common understanding of the task and team. Therefore, the current research explored shared mental models of air traffic controllers which have been shown to contribute to efficient team performance. By means of a cognitive task analysis the mental models controllers have were identified and resulted in an air traffic control specific framework of shared mental models. In order to validate the framework and assess the degree of sharedness of controllers' mental models, a web-based card sorting task was undertaken recently. Several teams of two air navigation service providers in the Netherlands participated in the research including Tower/Approach Controllers (N=15), Area Controllers (N=22) and en-route controllers (N=63). The results are presented and discussed in terms of their importance for future air traffic management (A). For the covering abstract of the conference see ITRD E212333.

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