Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore one vital aspect of team performance, the development of vulnerability trust in temporary high-performance teams (HPTs), within the context of after-action debriefing sessions.

In-depth interviews were conducted with military aircrew members about sharing vulnerable and personal experiences after action in a war scenario. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to analyze the qualitative material.

The study identified six themes that influence the development of vulnerability trust in temporary HPTs: creating familiarity, caring attitude and recognition of other crew members, the power of transparency, fear of rejection, contradictions between team members and the number of listeners in a sharing session. All these themes appeared to have an effect on the development of vulnerability trust.

The study shows how vulnerability trust may affect team development and team performance.

The paper not only specifically provides an insight into the development of trust in HPTs but also helps to broaden the understanding of the importance of trust for team development in general.

The paper contributes knowledge on the development of vulnerability trust that is new to research on HPTs, and the study explores how vulnerability trust may affect team development and team performance. The data material for this research has been collected from military operators’ experiences in a war context. Such environments are often shielded from and minimally available for qualitative research.

This article aims to examine the nature and logics of organizational learning considered as a process by which organizations capitalize on the variety of experiences accumulated by their members.

Complementing the current literature on experiential learning, the authors build on a case study to investigate how organizations benefit from action learning and seek to identify the properties of the architecture supporting it. The case study focuses on how French Air Force fighter and airlift aircrews carry out debriefing sessions in their daily activities.

Within this framework, it can be observed that learning in debriefing sessions ultimately depends on the capacity of the learning agents to integrate individual and collective functions (namely, individual progression and collective performance).

Building on the foregoing, the paper elaborates on a conceptual model of the debriefing procedure made up of three components: a learning mode, a learning structure and a learning culture. It follows that the organization is likely to capitalize on individual experiences to improve knowledge and action if it is capable of providing its members with a flexible learning architecture enabling individuals to combine distinctive learning modes along with heterogeneous structures and cultural values.

RECENT discussion has focussed on the protection of military aircrew from the rigours of operating high performance, agile aircraft while at the same time expecting high mental and physical performance to meet the operational requirements of a mission. The cockpit space, seat design and availability of controls must optimise the room available and the complete protective clothing ensemble must provide free movement and not compromise effectiveness.

THE flight deck is the aircrew's primary point of contact with the aeroplane. Unlike the rest of the aeroplane which is designed with the specific objective of exceeding human capabilities the flight deck must be designed with human limitations very much in mind.

Recent reports suggest that the use of teams in organizations is increasing (Guzzo & Shea, 1992). In fact, many organizations are moving towards team-based approaches, where teams become the centerpiece of organizational structure. As a result of this emphasis on teamwork, it is becoming increasingly important for organizations to become skilled at identifying the task and skill requirements, as well as the cognitive demands of teams and team members. Effective identification of necessary team characteristics can inform several human resource management challenges for teams, including, team design, team training, rewards for team performance, team member selection, and the diagnosis and promotion of team effectiveness.

This paper suggests that one way to increase our understanding of teams is through the use of team task analysis (TTA). TTA is a process of analyzing and describing the tasks of teams and the jobs of team members and can be used to identify the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs), and attitude requirements relevant to team performance. Despite the obvious importance of TTA, reviews of the literature (Baker, Salas & Cannon-Bowers, 1998; Levine, Penner, Brannick, Coovert & Llobert, 1988) have found very little systematic work on the topic. Further, an examination of traditional job analysis sources (e.g. Gael, 1983; Gael, 1988; Harvey, 1992) revealed twelve pages devoted to TTA (Dieterly, 1988).

Based on the apparent lack of attention given to TTA, one purpose of this paper is to update previous work on TTA, by reviewing and integrating the existing literature. Another purpose of this paper is to offer researchers a foundation for additional theoretical work. Finally, we hope to contribute towards a framework, and/or tool, to aid practitioners in the delivery of human resource management services to teams.

In our review, we provide a comparison of individual task analysis vs. TTA and provide key points of departure between the two concepts. Additionally, a summary of TTA is provided as well as warnings to practitioners and researchers based on previous research and theorizing regarding the aggregation of data (e.g. Bowers, Baker & Salas, 1994; Brenner, Sheehan, Arthur & Bennett, 1998; Kenny & LaVoie, 1985; Klein, Dansereau & Hall, 1994; Rousseau, 1985). In particular, our warnings focus on the potential dangers associated with aggregating individual level information (e.g. individual job analysis data) to higher (e.g. team) levels.

Next, methods that have been used to collect TTA information are reviewed and classified. Then, the type of information gathered, such as, team competencies/skills (e.g. Cannon-Bowers, Tannenbaum, Salas & Volpe, 1995; Stevens & Campion, 1994), job characteristics (e.g. Campion, Medsker & Higgs, 1993; Campion, Papper & Medsker, 1996), and cognitive information (e.g. Brenner et al., 1998; Klein, 1993) are reviewed and categorized. Additionally, comparisons of individual cognitive task analysis (i.e. the mental processes needed to accomplish an individual task) and cognitive TTA (i.e. the integrative team mental processes needed to accomplish a team task) are provided.

We conclude with a presentation of criteria for evaluating TTA methodologies and a series of suggestions to guide both practitioners and researchers regarding future work in TTA. Our emphasis is on explaining the value of TTA and what it means to the reader, regardless of his/her occupation (e.g. practitioner or researcher).

Aeromedical training is meant to train aircrew in combating physiological problems that they might face in flight. Given the importance of the training, there are limited studies in the literature investigating the anxiety levels during aeromedical training along with training outcomes. This study aims to assess the untrained participants’ anxiety levels before and after aeromedical training, investigate the differences in anxiety levels across different physiological training devices and determine whether participants’ anxiety levels affect their G tolerances.

This study was carried out on 61 healthy male subjects (n = 61) who had applied for initial aeromedical training. Anxiety surveys and visual analog scales were administered before and after the practical aeromedical training. In addition, blood pressure and heart rate measurements were carried out.

Participants had significantly higher anxiety levels before human centrifuge training (pre-Glab) than before the altitude chamber training (pre-hypobaric). Participants who experienced G-induced loss of consciousness (G-LOC) had slightly more anxiety reported than the non-G-LOC group. There was a significant decrease between pre-Glab and post-Glab (after the human centrifuge training) and between pre-hypobaric and post-hypobaric (after the altitude chamber training) anxiety levels. The incidence of G-LOC was lower in participants having higher pre-G-Lab blood pressure. However, the difference in anxiety levels between the G-LOC group and the non-G-LOC group was not statistically significant.

In this study, state anxiety inventory was not performed after human centrifuge training as centrifuge training lasted for around 5 min only, and it is not advisable to repeat state anxiety inventory in such short periods. Blood pressure was not measured after G-Lab training because human centrifuge training is hard training and has an impact on blood pressure. Hence, it would have been difficult to distinguish whether the blood pressure change was due to anxiety or hard physical activity. These limitations, especially for the G-Lab, caused us to evaluate state anxiety only with VAS. It would be worthwhile to repeat similar studies with objective measurements before and after the training.

This information suggests that instructors who train the applicants on aerospace medicine be ready for the possible consequences of anxiety.

There are only a few centers in the world that include all the physiological training devices (practical aeromedical training laboratories) together. To the best of authors’ knowledge, there are no studies in the literature investigating the differences in anxiety levels across various physiological training devices. The studies about the effect of anxiety levels on aeromedical training outcomes and anxiety levels before and after the training are scant.

Unobtrusive measurement methodologies are critical to implementing intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) for teams. Such methodologies allow for continuous measurement of team states and processes while avoiding disruption of mission or training performance, and do not rely on post hoc feedback (including for the aggregation of data into measures or to develop insights from these real-time metrics). This chapter summarizes advances in unobtrusive measurement developed within Army research programs to illustrate the variety and potential that unobtrusive measurement approaches can provide for building ITS for teams. Challenges regarding the real-time aggregation of data and applications to current and future ITS for teams are also discussed.

A new prototyping technology named QuickCast, developed by USA‐based 3D Systems, has been introduced to the European market. Since its USA introduction 12 months ago, the method has been adopted by investment‐casting foundries and end‐user industries such as aerospace.

In 1982, the formation of a chapter of SAFE in the United Kingdom was prompted by an increasing UK participation in the annual symposium held in the United States and the growing number of British members of the association. The SAFE symposium has become the main forum for the discussion of aviation safety and man‐related sub‐systems such as oxygen equipment, flight clothing and chemical defence. The UK chapter of SAFE provides the year‐round benefits of being a member of the association and it has been decided to open the membership to anyone who could not visit the symposium in the USA and who did not wish to join the main American society.