Predictive Utility of an Objective Measure of Situation Awareness

Situation awareness (SA) can generally be defined as the pilot's mental model of the world around him. The ability of the pilot to maintain situation awareness has been recognized in the pilot community as crucial to mission success and survivability. Little empirical work has been done to explore this construct, however, as measurement techniques have been lacking. The Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT) was developed and validated as an objective measure of a pilot's situation awareness to meet this need. An investigation of the relationship between situation awareness and performance was conducted using SAGAT. The study evaluated the utility of situation awareness in a manned fighter sweep tactical mission using experienced pilot subjects. A total of 90 trials were conducted. The results support the importance of situation awareness for mission effectiveness. Blue Team subjects were almost twice as likely to later kill an aircraft when they had SA of that aircraft, as measured by SAGAT, than when they did not. The effect of rules of engagement, mission scenario, aircraft and weapons systems on the relationship between SA and performance is discussed.