Scenario-Based Task Design for Airline Pilot Anticipatory Behaviors

In airline operations, pilots are asked to actively produce positive safety outcomes and to learn from their own and others’ successes. They do this, in part, by monitoring conditions present on each flight and either reacting to or proactively planning for threats to airplane safety. However, there are few ways to assess these anticipatory and monitoring behaviors, and little is understood about how to train these complex cognitive skills. Pilots have historically learned these skills informally from peers or from personal experience. The current study seeks to both assess monitoring and anticipation and evaluate a short tutorial for advancing awareness of these skills, especially among early-career pilots. Scenario-based tasks were designed to assess these skills at multiple points along a flight path and were tested in a pre-test – intervention – post-test design. The design and operationalization of these assessment tasks are described here.