Development and Evaluation of Communication-Based Measures of Situation Awareness
Abstract
The present investigation sought to develop and field test two new behavioral measures of situation awareness (SA) that rated the content of small unit radio transmissions. Initially, a four-person team generated an item pool of 318 critical incidents of communication behavior, each intended to represent either an outstanding, typical, or poor level of SA on the part of small unit leaders. A group of 24 independent evaluators then rated the degree to which they thought each of the 318 items was related to the concept of SA. The 20 items having the highest levels of agreement among the independent evaluators within each SA level were chosen to comprise the Radio Communications Checklist of Leader Awareness (RCCOLA) and the Future Expectations of Likely Leader Awareness (FELLA) scale. Six field trials were then conducted with each of seven squad leaders and their respective squads. Based on their monitoring of squad and platoon radios, two independent raters completed separate RCCOLA checklists during each of the 42 total trials, as well as separate FELLA scales after the completion of each trial. Interrater agreement was generally high for both measures. Based on their methods of construction, we can also assume they possess some content-related validity.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 2003
- Accession Number
- ADA413106
Entities
People
- Kenneth L. Evans
- Richard E. Christ
Organizations
- U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences