Copyright D Gurney 2006

Critical Thinking
An Introduction to Situation Awareness
and Decision Making
Critical Thinking
An Introduction to Situation Awareness
and Decision Making
Tr|s preserlal|or prov|des ar overv|eW ol roW lo |rprove s|lual|or aWareress. ll |s |rlerded lo errarce lre reader's urdersla Tr|s preserlal|or prov|des ar overv|eW ol roW lo |rprove s|lual|or aWareress. ll |s |rlerded lo errarce lre reader's urderslard| rd|rg, oul |l sra|| rol supersede lre app||cao|e regu|al|ors or a|r||re's rg, oul |l sra|| rol supersede lre app||cao|e regu|al|ors or a|r||re's
operal|ora| docurerlal|or; srou|d lrere oe ary d|screparcy appear oelWeer lr|s preserlal|or ard lre a|r||re's AFV / (V)VEL / operal|ora| docurerlal|or; srou|d lrere oe ary d|screparcy appear oelWeer lr|s preserlal|or ard lre a|r||re's AFV / (V)VEL / FC0 FC0V / 0Rl / FCTV, lre |aller sra|| preva|| al a|| l|res. V / 0Rl / FCTV, lre |aller sra|| preva|| al a|| l|res.
Thinking about thinking Thinking about thinking
Copyright D Gurney 2006
Introduction Introduction
This self-study guide provides advice on how to improve your thinking and introduces the
associated aspects of situation awareness and decision making. These activities are
essential processes in threat and error management, which must be used in daily
operations. Thinking is the core skill in these activities; critical thinking involves
controlling your thinking:- thinking about the quality of your thinking.
The guide is in five sections:
1. Threat and Error Management
2. Situation Awareness
3. Decision Making
4. Critical Thinking
5. Situation Awareness and Decision Making
$pea|ers roles prov|de add|l|ora| |rlorral|or, lrey car oe se|ecled oy c||c||rg lre r|grl rouse oullor $pea|ers roles prov|de add|l|ora| |rlorral|or, lrey car oe se|ecled oy c||c||rg lre r|grl rouse oullor |n 8||deshow V|ew |n 8||deshow V|ew, se|ecl $creer, se|ecl $pea|ers roles. , se|ecl $creer, se|ecl $pea|ers roles.
Tr|s preserlal|or car oe pr|rled |r lre roles lorral lo prov|de a persora| relererce docurerl. Tr|s preserlal|or car oe pr|rled |r lre roles lorral lo prov|de a persora| relererce docurerl.
Everyone thinks; it is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to Everyone thinks; it is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to
itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed or down itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed or down- -right prejudiced. Yet right prejudiced. Yet
the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends
precisely on the quality of our thought. Poor thinking is costly, both in precisely on the quality of our thought. Poor thinking is costly, both in
money and in quality of life. Excellence in thought, however, must be money and in quality of life. Excellence in thought, however, must be
systematically and continuously cultivated. systematically and continuously cultivated.
Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making
Copyright D Gurney 2006
All flight and ground operations
Threat and Error Management Threat and Error Management
Threat and Error Management (TEM) is a major safety process in aviation.
TEM consists of detecting, avoiding or trapping threats and errors that challenge the
safety of flight operations. Where threats and errors are not contained the resulting
conditions must be managed and their adverse effects reduced.
Plane
Path
People
Threats Errors Undesired States
Detect
Avoid / Trap
Mitigate
Resist
Resolve
Recover
Fly the aircraft, Navigate, Communicate, Manage
Decision Making Decision Making
Situation Awareness Situation Awareness
Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making
Copyright D Gurney 2006
Situation Awareness Situation Awareness
Situation Awareness is having an accurate understanding of your
surroundings, where you are, what happened, what is happening, what is
changing, why, and what could happen.
Good situation awareness requires:
1. Gathering data (sensing, perception), seeking cues in the environment
2. Assembling information to give understanding (comprehension)
3. and then thinking ahead (projection)
Thinking about situation awareness involves:
directing your attention to seek data; scanning a range of sources
evaluating information without bias, for accuracy and relevance
understanding, using your knowledge and previous experiences
comparing and checking, visualising future events - 'what if'
planning ahead, considering possible outcomes
People People
Path Path
Plane Plane
Future Now
Situation
Planning Planning
Ahead Ahead
Gathering Gathering
data data
Understanding Understanding
Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making
Copyright D Gurney 2006
Decision Making Decision Making
Decision making is about assessment and choosing a course of action
Decision making requires an understanding of the situation and controlled thinking
The situation determines the urgency of the decision, the risks, and actions
Controlled thinking:
Reduces risk
Moderates behaviour
Manages time constraints
Uses knowledge; seeks options
Judges relevance and the quality of the choice
Prepares for action, evaluates the outcome of planned action
D A D A
bserve
rient
Deduce
Act
D E C I D E D E C I D E
Detect a change
Estimate significance
Choose a safe outcome
dentify possible actions
Do take action
Evaluate the result
5 D 5 D
Detect
Determine
Decide
Do
Discipline
GRADE GRADE
Gather nformation
Review nformation
Analyse Alternatives
Decide
Evaluate utcome of
Action
T H I N K T H I N K
Expertise involves knowing how to decide, grade, and think Expertise involves knowing how to decide, grade, and think how to use all of the elements how to use all of the elements
Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making
Copyright D Gurney 2006
Thinking inside the
'box' before you think
outside of the box
Critical Thinking Critical Thinking
Critical thinking provides the mental control and discipline required for
situation assessment and decision making. t involves several skills;
these can be learnt, practiced, and improved.
Control your mind by:
Seeking and understanding information, facts, and data
Effective planning, briefing, and communication
ncreasing knowledge; gaining experience
Learning within a situation (context)
Maintain discipline by:
Being aware of how you think; hazardous attitudes
Evaluating your actions; having self regulation
Being aware of all available resources
Being sensitive to feedback
Critical Thinking is the skill of
thinking about your thinking
"Are you in charge of your thinking, or is your thinking in charge of you?" "Are you in charge of your thinking, or is your thinking in charge of you?"
Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making
Copyright D Gurney 2006
Critical Thinking - Self awareness Critical Thinking - Self awareness
Self awareness - self questioning, self monitoring
Am biased in my thinking
Have made a plan for what want to do
Are my ideas or knowledge on this issue correct
Am aware of my thinking; what am trying to do
Am using all of the resources for what want to do
Am evaluating my thinking, what would do differently next time
Am aware of how well am doing; do need to change my actions or intentions
439473 439473is checking or testing the accuracy of a situation on a regular
basis. t is keeping a close watch over parameters
and supervising the outcome of planned action.
t is checking for threats and errors in our thinking
Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making
Copyright D Gurney 2006
Critical Thinking - Knowledge Critical Thinking - Knowledge
mproving your thinking with Knowledge
Knowledge of Yourself
A Commitment to safety, not following feelings or preference
Positive Attitudes, persistence, resourcefulness, learning from failure
Attention to detail and seeing the big picture; determining relevance, assessing risk
Knowledge about the Thinking Processes
Knowing the facts necessary to do a task by seeking information
Knowing how to do a task, how to scan, understand, and think ahead
Knowing why certain strategies work, when to use them, why one is better than another
Knowledge to control your Thinking
Self evaluation, assessing current technical knowledge, setting objectives, selecting resources
Self regulation, checking progress; reviewing choices, procedures, and objectives
Planning, choosing and evaluating a path to the objective
Planning is the process of thinking about what you will
do in the event of something happening or not
happening
Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making
Copyright D Gurney 2006
Critical Thinking - Behaviour Critical Thinking - Behaviour
mproving your thinking by changing behaviour
Changing your thinking habit requires effort; clear thinking is an essential
part of airmanship, which has to be developed throughout your career.
Basic training only provides those skills necessary to be safe.
Safe: Continuation training and experience enables an effective operation.
Effective: More technical knowledge, practiced skills, and more experience
leads to an efficient operation.
Efficient: Skilful command in controlling the aircraft and team leadership adds
experience and moves towards an expert operation.
Expert: An operator who has gained and who maintains a high standard of
technical and non-technical skills as a result of great personal effort.
Expert thinkers Expert thinkers
Focus on relevant issues Focus on relevant issues
dentify essential information dentify essential information
Consider information on merit Consider information on merit
Test and check the basis of their awareness and decisions Test and check the basis of their awareness and decisions
Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making
Copyright D Gurney 2006
Critical Thinking - Personal Briefing Critical Thinking - Personal Briefing
mproving your thinking - Briefing
Before flight, self briefing reinforces memory cues and knowledge, these aid the recall
of information for use in situation assessment and decision making.
Know on what, who, where, and when to prioritise you attention
Always brief routine operations repetition aids memory
Structure the briefing along the intended flight path
Visualise your actions (plane, path, people)
Consider the significant threats
Recall lessons from training
Refresh SPs
Questions
Do not rush: Do not rush:
Your thoughts control your actions Your thoughts control your actions
Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making
Copyright D Gurney 2006
Critical Thinking - Personal Debrief Critical Thinking - Personal Debrief
mproving your thinking - Debrief
After each flight consider the following points; Plus, Minus, nteresting (PM)
Plus:-
What was good
What went according to plan
Minus:-
What was not so good, and why
What didn't you know, find the answer before the next flight
nteresting:-
Have you changed the way in which you see things; threats, risks, people or procedures
What did you learn, why, and where did the information come from
Will you share this with others, if not why not
Anything for a safety event report (ASR)
Any issues for confidential reporting
Did you experience:-
High workload
Poor attitudes
Biased opinions
Mismanaged time
Unanswered questions
!us !us
Minus Minus
Interesting Interesting
Debriefing Debriefing
Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making
Copyright D Gurney 2006
All flight and ground operations
Thinking about Situation Awareness
and Decision Making
Thinking about Situation Awareness
and Decision Making
Situation Awareness and Decision Making depend on our ability to think.
Thinking enables humans to be very successful, but this ability also enables errors,
which if not controlled increase the risks in our daily activities.
Action
Monitor
Feedback
Review
Response
Decision Making Decision Making
Situation Situation
Awareness Awareness
Working memory
Long term memory - knowledge, bias, beliefs
Pattern recognition
Comparison
Choice
Selection
Senses:
See
Hear
Touch
Smell
Taste
Value your ability, use it wisely Value your ability, use it wisely
Threats Errors Undesired States
Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making
Copyright D Gurney 2006
Critical Thinking - for Situation Awareness Critical Thinking - for Situation Awareness
Critical thinking for Situation Awareness seeking information
Essential components:
Accuracy; is the information true
Clarity; is the information understood
Precision, seek detail to understand the situation
Relevance, is the information connected to the situation
Depth, does the information address the complexity of the situation
Breadth, are there other points of view or other ways to consider this situation
Logic, does your understanding of the situation make sense
Whenever you don't understand something,
ask yourself a question for clarification
?
Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making
Copyright D Gurney 2006
Critical Thinking - for Decision Making Critical Thinking - for Decision Making
Critical thinking for Decision Making the choice of action
Essential components:
What are the immediate risks
What is the time available for the decision
State the objective of the decision to be made
dentify information to be used in making the decision
Gather the evidence and information required to make a decision
Make a decision based on criteria (a safe outcome), information, and risks
Ask, what does the evidence and information mean considering the objective?
Routine
Trained
For
Unusual
Novel
Situation
Knowledge Knowledge
Skill Skill
Rules Rules
Needs
Uses
Requires
Almost automatic action; actions have
been thought-through during training
Think about which action applies to
the situation, compare with training
Think about the situation, compare with
standard actions, training, and previous
experience
Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making Critical Thinking - Situation Awareness and Decision Making
Copyright D Gurney 2006
Critical Thinking Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is at the centre of all safety processes and human activity.
Threat and Error Threat and Error
Management Management
Decision Decision
Making Making
Situation Situation
Awareness Awareness
Critica Thinking Critica Thinking
Information Information
To print the Presenter Notes:
n Windows Explorer, change the presentation file extension from .pps to .ppt
pen the new ppt file and select ie, !rint, print what Notes !ages.
1 the presentation seems to be running slowly, try one or more o1 the 1ollowing:
Reduce the resolution for the slide show presentation display.
n the Side Show menu, click Set Up Show.
Under !erformance, in the Side show resoution box, click 640x480 in the list.
Note. Changing resolution may cause the slide image to be slightly shifted. f this happens, either choose a different
resolution or click Use Current Resoution.
Set the colour depth to 16 bit for optimal performance. For information on changing the number of colours displayed on
your monitor, see Microsoft Windows Help.
n the Side Show menu, click Set Up Show. Under !erformance, select the Use hardware graphics acceeration
check box. f your computer has this capability, ffice PowerPoint 2003 will attempt to use it.
Note. f you notice performance problems with the slide show after you change this setting, turn off the option. Your
computer may not have this capability.
nimations (PowerPoint Ver 2003 required). Download reader from
http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?AssetD=XT011683791033&rigin=HH011891411033&CTT=5
Animation performance will be much better with a video card that has Microsoft Direct 3D. (Direct 3D is a component of
Microsoft DirectX, which is a set of advanced multimedia system services built into the Microsoft Windows operating
system.) Many video card manufacturers take advantage of this technology; check with the documentation you
received with your computer to find out if Direct 3D is supported.