FAA Office of Aerospace Medicine
Civil Aerospace Medical Institute
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Report No: DOT/FAA/AM-98/7

Title and Subtitle: Evaluating the Decision-Making Skills of General Aviation Pilots

Report Date: February 1998

Authors: Driskill, W.E., Weissmuller, J.J., Quebe, J., Hand, D.K.; and Hunter, D.R.

Abstract: An instrument consisting of 51 items was developed to assess pilot decision-making skill. Each item consisted of a stem, a short description of an aviation scenario requiring a decision on the part of the pilot. Four alternatives were provided, and subjects were instructed to rank order the alternatives from best to worst solution to the scenario presented. Rank-ordered judgments of a sample of 246 general aviation (GA) pilots (with an average of about 500 hours of total flying experience) were compared with the recommended solutions provided by an expert panel.

Results indicated that, overall, GA pilots and an expert panel of pilots agreed in their judgments of the appropriate course of action in situations critical to flight safety. However, the degree of agreement of individual general aviation pilots with the recommended solutions varied widely. An index of agreement (Safety Deviation Index) was calculated that expressed the degree of agreement of individual GA pilots with the recommended solutions. Initial evaluation of this index indicates that it demonstrates adequate psychometric properties and that, as other research would suggest, it has little relationship with common demographic or flight experience measures.

Key Words: Pilots, Aircraft Pilots, Decision-Making, Aviation Safety, Linear Modeling, Policy Capturing

No. of Pages: 43