Suggesting a context-general survey for situation awareness

One of the aims of my post-doc was to develop a measurement approach for situation awareness (SA) that could be applied across different settings, and can be used in large data collections. Endsley's theoretical model suggests that SA consists of three levels - perception, understanding and prediction, and should be measured with instruments adapted to the setting in question.

Based on a theoretical review, I developed and piloted an inventory of 13 items, which were then tested on a larger sample of 166 sailors. To test whether the inventory supported the theoretical model for SA, two different confirmatory factor analyses were run, one where all items were associated with a single factor, and one where the items were associated with three factors.  The three factor model showed a good fit with the response patterns.

Thus the approach appears psychometrically valid, although it remains to see whether it has any predictive value. Further, some researchers may be reluctant to measure SA in the same way across contexts. The article was published in a special issue of International Maritime Health.

Link to paper: Sætrevik, B. (2013). Developing a context-general self-report approach to measuring three-level situation awareness.