• Earl H McKinney and Kevin J Davis.
• 324 College of Business, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA. emckinn@cba.bgsu.edu
• Hum Factors. 2003 Jan 1; 45 (3): 436-44.

AbstractThis study examined the impact of deliberate practice on pilot decision making in once-in-a-career crisis decision scenarios. First we explored the impact of deliberate practice on pilot decision-making performance for crisis flying scenarios that had been practiced in their entirety. Then we looked at the impact of deliberate practice in which one aspect of the crisis scenario--the particular malfunction--was unpracticed. We analyzed pilot decision-making performance in response to 160 airborne mechanical malfunctions. We initially found that deliberate practice significantly improves decision-making performance for wholly practiced crises but does not improve decision-making performance when the specific malfunction has not been practiced. We then split decision making for each crisis into two phases: assessment and action selection. For wholly practiced crisis scenarios, additional deliberate practice positively impacts each decision-making phase. However, for part-practiced scenarios, deliberate practice appears to differentially affect phase of error. Specifically, pilots with more deliberate practice erred in action selection, whereas less-practiced pilots erred in assessment. Actual or potential applications of this research include training proscriptions for crisis decision making.

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