Expertise in Air Traffic Control (ATC): What is it, and how Can we Train for It?

The Federal Aviation Administration has embarked on a major curriculum redesign effort to improve the training efficiency of en route air traffic controllers. Included in this effort was a comprehensive cognitive task analysis conducted in several phases, spanning several years. Eight different types of data collection and analysis procedures were used, resulting in an integrated model of controller expertise. This paper provides a description of controller expertise, and describes the training program under development. This is one of the first examples of cognitive task analysis being applied to study expertise in complex cognitive tasks performed in time-constrained, multi-tasking environments.