Predicting Shared Situation Awareness in Teams: A Case of Differential SA Requirements

In this paper, we report our efforts at developing a valid approach for measuring and predicting shared situation awareness (SA) in teams performing in complex operational environments. Participants were assigned to one of 4 teams (Navy, Army, Special Operations, or Joint Service) and completed a simulated military rescue operation training exercise. We developed procedures to measure the degree of shared SA between team members and to improve the accuracy of shared SA scores. The measures were then used to evaluate five potential predictors of shared SA (experience similarity, shared task knowledge, cognitive workload similarity, communication distance, organizational hub distance). We examined the relationship of these factors to specific queries that assessed different types of SA information requirements. Results indicated that four factors had significant relationships with shared SA, but that the factors related to each query changed in relation to the type of SA assessed by the query. We discuss the implications of these results for predicting shared SA under different situational conditions.