Development of a Situation Awareness Training Program for Aviation Maintenance

Training to improve situation awareness has become a topic of concern, particularly in safety critical areas such as aviation. This paper describes a training program designed to enhance situation awareness across the multiple, distributed teams found in aircraft maintenance. Problems with poor situation awareness in aircraft maintenance and gaps in situation awareness across the multiple teams engaged in this process have been linked to aircraft accidents, damage and inefficiencies in airline operations. The training program was developed based on an instructional systems design model. A front-end analysis was conducted which resulted in a determination of instructional objectives and goals. Five concepts for training to improve team SA were specified and developed into a deliverable training program: Shared mental models, verbalization of decisions, shift meetings and teamwork, provision of feedback, and individual SA training. The instructional design process used and the Team SA Training Program developed for this domain will be discussed.