FAA Office of Aerospace Medicine 
Civil Aerospace Medical Institute 

Report No: DOT/FAA/AM-23/36

Title and Subtitle: Evaluation of Online Stress Management Training for Air Traffic Controllers: Comparing Training Effectiveness across Online and In-Person Formats

Report Date: November 2023

Authors: Torrence, B., Barrett, J., Ho, T.

Abstract: A stress management training was developed for air traffic control (ATC) trainees at the Federal Aviation Administration’s Academy to build their knowledge of career-specific stressors, stress responses, and stress management techniques. A validation study was completed in 2019 and found that the training was associated with positive gains in objective and perceived stress management knowledge and positive gains in stress management confidence. There was also evidence to suggest that participants retained knowledge gains one to two months after the training. Following changes to the Air Traffic training curriculum in 2020, the stress management training now is delivered online in the Virtual for Air Traffic Basics course and provided to trainees earlier in their training. Given that the training was originally developed as an interactive, classroom-based training, an evaluation study assessed the effectiveness of the online stress management training and compared training outcomes across delivery formats (in-person and online). A pretest, posttest, follow-up (PPF) design was conducted with N = 137 current ATC trainees. Archival data from the original validation study (N = 118) was used as the comparison group. We found that the pattern of gains in the online stress management training were similar to the original validation study. Namely, there were positive gains in objective knowledge, perceived knowledge, and stress management confidence immediately following the training. Interestingly, trainees in the in-person training demonstrated better knowledge retention at follow-up than trainees in the online training. Implications of these findings and recommendations for ATC stress management training are discussed.

Key Words: air traffic control (ATC), stress management training, online training, training evaluation

No. of Pages: 29