The effects of team leader feedback on situation assessment indistributed anti-air warfare teams.

Abstract

Situation assessment is the first step in the Command and Control process. In naval tactical teams, it has become more critical even as it has become more difficult. Part of the Navy's attempt to address this issue is the Tactical Decision Making Under Stress (TADMUS) program. Under TADMUS, the Situation Assessment In Naval Teams (SAINT) experiment was run at NPS in December, 1991. This thesis describes the SAINT experiment and uses data collected during the experiment to study the effects of team leader feedback on situation assessment in distributed air defense teams. The emphasis of study is on performance, (error rate and pattern) , subjective workload, and communication rates. Findings include: feedback of the leader's current assessment lowers explicit coordination; feedback does not affect subjective workload; feedback increases error rates, and may affect error patterns. Evidence of feedback causing confirmatory bias was also found, but more research in this area is recommended.