In the military domain, situation awareness (SA) is an important concept. The precise definition is elusive - generally it is accepted to mean 'knowing what is going on'. The presumption is that in battles, all combat personnel must have SA, without which they may face defeat or make serious mistakes with potentially dire consequences. The dynamic environment in which they operate is far from favourable for gaining and maintaining SA. Commanders and soldiers are under pressure to make decisions even though the situation is unclear. / The goal of the research project reported in this thesis is to adapt an existing measure of SA for use in the land force domain, and to investigate the validity of the measure. An SA metric provides a powerful tool in SA research. It has the capacity to provide rigour in studies examining the impact of technology insertion on SA. / SAGAT (Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique)*, [Endsley, M. R. (1995). Measurement of Situation Awareness in Dynamic Systems. Human Factors, 37 (1), 65-84.] was developed to provide objective measures of SA for computer simulation studies in the aviation domain. In order to apply SAGAT in the field environment in the land domain, the technique had to be modified. This resulted in a new method called the Direct Questioning Technique (DQT). The DQT followed the principles of SAGAT, but was different in its implementation. / The DQT was applied in three studies to measure SA in the land force. The method was successively refined over the three studies. The first dealt with a Command Post exercise in which the SA of a command team was measured. It served as a pilot to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of the method. In the second study, the SA of members of an infantry section was measured in a field setting to investigate the effects of intra-section radios on SA. The environment in which the study was conducted demanded further modification of the method. The third study, also conducted in the field, involved SA measures of members of the Ground-Based Air Defence Regiment. In this case the impact of digital display on SA was investigated. / SAGAT has been demonstrated to have a high degree of sensitivity, reliability and validity in other domains. The three studies reported in the thesis produced results that were entirely consistent with those that would be expected from the SA theory and model, showing that the DQT has criterion validity. Content validity was ensured through a rigorous process. The environment in which it was implemented conferred face validity. / It will be shown that the DQT is a sound method for providing objective measures of SA in the land domain. The method produces rich data, the analysis of which may provide insights about the operator's SA in terms of each SA level (perception, comprehension and prediction), and category (friendly or enemy force and terrain). The DQT is not difficult to implement and does not require special equipment. A disadvantage is that it is effort intensive, including the requirement for a Subject Matter Expert to support the researcher during the activities. / Thesis (MEng(ComputerSystemsEng))--University of South Australia, 2006.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/267136 |
| Creators | French, Han Tin. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | copyright under review |
Page generated in 0.0016 seconds