Modeling industrial firefighters’ performance through cognitive factors: an integrated DEMATEL–ANP–SEM approach

Industrial firefighters operate in complex and high-risk environments where effective performance depends heavily on cognitive capabilities such as attention, risk perception, and situation awareness. Although previous studies have identified and prioritized cognitive performance shaping factors, few have empirically validated their relationships with firefighters’ operational performance using a structural modeling approach. Therefore, this study aimed to develop and validate a structural equation model of industrial firefighters’ operational performance based on cognitive factors previously identified and prioritized using the DEMATEL and ANP methods. This analytical cross-sectional study was conducted among 141 industrial firefighters in Iran in 2021. The cognitive performance shaping factors (PSFs) included in the present study were derived from our previous research, in which DEMATEL was used to identify the causal relationships among performance shaping factors and eliminate less influential factors, followed by ANP to prioritize the remaining cognitive factors. In the present study, the highest-priority cognitive factors identified in the previous research were measured, and structural equation modeling (SEM) implemented in IBM SPSS AMOS was used to validate the proposed structural model and examine the relationships between cognitive factors and firefighters’ operational performance. The findings showed that situation awareness, risk perception, and attention were among the most influential cognitive factors affecting firefighters’ operational performance. The structural equation model showed that situation awareness, risk perception, and attention were each significantly and positively associated with operational performance (β = 0.46, 0.38, and 0.31, respectively; all p < 0.01). The proposed model showed satisfactory fit with the observed data (χ²/df = 1.84, RMSEA = 0.045, GFI = 0.954), confirming the adequacy and robustness of the developed framework. Among the cognitive factors retained in the final model, situation awareness, risk perception, and attention each showed a statistically significant positive association with industrial firefighters’ operational performance. The proposed structural model contributes to a better understanding of the cognitive mechanisms underlying performance in safety-critical environments and provides an evidence-based framework for future research on firefighter assessment and training. However, because of the cross-sectional design, the findings should be interpreted as associations rather than causal relationships. Future longitudinal and intervention studies are needed to examine whether strengthening these cognitive capabilities is associated with better operational performance.