Aviation Psychology: Practice and Research

In the well-established aviation system, the importance of sound human factors practice, based on good aviation psychology research, is obvious from those incidents and accidents resulting from its neglect. This carefully structured book presents an up-to-date review of the main areas in the field of Aviation Psychology. It contains current thinking mainly from Europe, but with input from Australia and North America, from specialists involved in research, training and operational practice. Spanning six parts, the book covers: Human Engineering, Occupational Demands, Selection of Aviation Personnel, Human Factors Training, Clinical Psychology, Accident Investigation and Prevention. Looking at the six parts - in human engineering, the reader learns about human-centered automation as well as human factors issues in aircraft certification. Results derived by job analysis methods are presented in the next part and serve as basic information in the design of selection and training programs. In selection, computerized testing or behaviour-oriented assessments are challenging approaches for personnel recruitment. Cost-benefit analyses in selection reveal convincing results, enabling organizations to save huge amounts of inappropriate training investment by the application of proper selection tests. The NOTECHS method is described which helps to assess CRM capabilities in training and can also be used to measure training effects in systematic validation studies. Although operational personnel in aviation are usually able to cope with stress more efficiently than other occupational groups, individual problems might develop as reactions to traumatic influences. Either a psychological evaluation or a proper treatment or both is then required as described in the 'Clinical Psychology' part of the book. The readership includes: aviation psychologists and flight surgeons, training, selection and recruitment specialists, instructor pilots, CRM facilitators, personnel managers, accident investigators, safety pilots, air traffic controllers, aircraft engineers and those dealing with human-machine interfaces.

Klaus-Martin Goeters (M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Psychology) has been Head of Department of Aviation and Space Psychology at German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Hamburg, Germany since 1986. His professional activities include research on living and working under confinement (underwater habitats, spaceflights), psychological selection of operational personnel (pilots, air traffic controllers, astronauts), transfer of psychological tests to different cultures and the design and evaluation of non-technical skills training. He teaches at the University of Hamburg. He is Board Member of the European Association for Aviation Psychology. Besides numerous articles and technical reports he is the editor of Aviation Psychology: A Science and a Profession (Ashgate, 1998).

Contents: Part I: Human Engineering: Human-centred automation: research and design issues, Bernd Lorenz; Human/machine interfaces for cooperative flight guidance, Fred Schick; Pilot assistant systems for increased flight safety, Peter Hecker; Human factors in the design and certification of a new aircraft, Ulla Metzger, Gideon Singer, Martin Angerer and Ronald N.H.W. van Gent. Part II: Occupational Demands: Ability requirements in core aviation professions: job analyses of airline pilots and air traffic controllers, Klaus-Martin Goeters, Peter Maschke and Hinnerk EiÃYfeldt. Part III: Selection of Aviation Personnel: Computer assisted testing (CAT) in aviation psychology, Gerrit Huelmann and Victor Oubaid; The relevance of general cognitive ability (g) for training success of ab-initio air traffic controllers, Marc Damitz and Hinnerk EiÃYfeldt; Personality evaluation of applicants in aviation, Peter Maschke; Behaviour-oriented evaluation of aviation personnel: an assessment center approach, Stefan Höft and Yvonne Pecena; Pan-European selection test battery for air traffic control applicants, Hermann Rathje, Zvi Golany and Hinnerk EiÃYfeldt; Cost-benefit analysis of pilot selection: the economic value of psychological testing, Klaus-Martin Goeters and Peter Maschke; Cost savings: the use of Biodata to improve selection efficiency in aviation, Hinnerk EiÃYfeldt. Part IV: Human Factors Traning: The current status of CRM training and its regulation in Europe, André Droog; Training of situation awareness and threat management techniques, Hans-JÃ-rgen Hörmann and Henning Soll; Non-technical skills assessment in pilot training: theory and practice of the NOTECHS method, Klaus-Martin Goeters; The NOTECHS system, Rhona Flin; Non-technical skills assessment in pilot training: experimental plan of the JAR-TEL study, Marie-Claude Delsart; JAR-TEL results: inter-rater reliabilities, sensitivity and acceptability of the NOTECHS method, Paul O'Connor; JAR-TEL results: testing the cultural robustness of the NOTECHS method, Hans-JÃ-rgen Hörmann; Practicability of NOTECHS in regular airline training, Lucio Polo; Validation of CRM training by NOTECHS: results from the PHARE ASI project, Klaus-Martin Goeters. Part V: Clinical Psychology: Psychological requirements and examination guidelines in JAR-FCL 3, Dirk Stelling; Prevention and treatment of post-traumatic stress effects, Wolfgang Roth; Integration of different autonomic measures into common indicators of 'psychophysiological costs', Bernd Johannes and Vyacheslav Petrovich Salnitski. Part VI: Accident Investigation and Prevention: Retrospective analysis and prospective integration of human factors into safety management, Oliver StrÃ-ter and Dominique Van Damme; Safety investigation: systemic occurrence analysis methods, Brent Hayward and Andrew Lowe.