Situational awareness and safety
Section snippets
History of the Concept
According to Gilson (1995), the concept of situational awareness was identified during World War I by Oswald Boelke who realised ‘the importance of gaining an awareness of the enemy before the enemy gained a similar awareness, and devised methods for accomplishing this.' This idea of separation between the human operators understanding of system status and actual system status is at the crux of the definition of situational awareness (Woods, 1988). The idea did not receive much attention in the
Definitions of situational awareness
The terms situation(al) awareness, situation(al) assessment and situation(al) measurement are rife in the literature. For simplicities sake, the term ‘situational' has been adopted in this paper as the terms appear interchangeable. Researchers and practitioners in this field have attempted to clear up the ambiguities in the definition of situational awareness (often abbreviated to SA in the literature). At a very simple level, situational awareness is an appropriate awareness of a situation (
Theories of situational awareness
The theories of situational awareness are strongly associated with the definitions that have given rise to the concept and the methods of assessing situational awareness in the world. Three main theoretical approaches dominate: the information processing approach, the activity approach, and the ecological approach. The information processing approach has been best represented by Endsley's (1995) theoretical three-level model of situational awareness. This presents an unfolding of situational
Loss of situational awareness
As already introduced, it is suggested that loss of situational awareness is correlated with poor system performance. Endsley and colleagues, in particular, have gone on to consider the implication of losing situational awareness. They suggest that people who have lost situational awareness may be slower to detect problems with the system they are controlling as well as requiring additional time to diagnose problems and conduct remedial activities when they are finally detected (Endsley and
Improving situational awareness
Endsley (1995) argues that system design should try to support and enhance situational awareness. She proposed a set of interface design criteria for enhancing situational awareness:
- 1.
Reduce the requirement for people to make calculations.
- 2.
Present data in a manner that makes level 2 SA (understanding) and level 3 SA (prediction) easier.
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Organise information in a manner that is consistent with the persons goals.
- 4.
Indicators of the current mode or status of the system can help the cue the appropriate
Conclusions
The initial review of the literature began with some critique of the usefulness of the concept of situational awareness. The response from flight crews, air traffic controllers and the National Transportation Safety Board seems to suggest that the ideas have proved to be of practical worth, whilst academic research still debates the definition and underlying theory. The theoretical debate hinges on whether situational awareness is a process or a product. The three-level model and interactive
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