How Military Research Can Improve Team Training Effectiveness in Other HighRisk Industries

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How Military Research Can ImproveTeam Training
Effectivenessin Other High-Risk Industries

• Jeffrey M. Beaubien, David P. Baker, Amy K.
  Holtzman
• American Institutes for Research
• Washington, DC
• IMTA Annual Conference November 5, 2003

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Background

• Military-sponsored research has led to a number
  of advances in the science and practice of team
  training
• Definitions of the essential components of
  teamwork,
• Theoretical models of team dynamics,
• Tools for measuring team inputs, processes and
  outputs, and
• Training programs for improving team performance.
• Much of the research that we will draw upon was
  developed under the TADMUS project.

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Background

• Team training programs have recently been
  developed in other high-risk industries, such as
  aviation, healthcare, and nuclear power.
• Unfortunately, these domains have reinvented the
  wheel at great cost in time, personnel, and
  materiel.
• Generally speaking, the resulting training
  programs have been less rigorously developed,
  implemented, and evaluated, than those from the
  military.

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Background

• The primary purpose of this paper is to
  illustrate how military-sponsored research can be
  leveraged to improve team training effectiveness
  in other high-risk industries.
• Our secondary purpose is to identify why
  advancements in the military have not
  transitioned to non-military settings, and to
  propose some recommendations for addressing this
  issue.

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Background

• We recognize that the field of team training is
  extremely broad. It encompasses
• Conducting team training needs analysis,
• Identifying the most critical teamwork
  competencies,
• Developing team training strategies, and
• Evaluating the effectiveness of team training
  programs.
• Therefore, we have purposely restricted our focus
  to two primary research areas and two specific
  industries.

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Teamwork Competencies

• The literature on teamwork competencies contains
  a number of inconsistencies in the competency
  labels and their associated definitions.
• Recent research by Cannon-Bowers and colleagues
  has helped clarify this body of research.
• Cannon-Bowers and colleagues began by
  distinguishing among teamwork-related knowledge,
  skills, and attitudes.

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Teamwork Attitudes

• Teamwork attitudes are defined as internal,
  motivational states that influence the team
  members decisions to act in a particular way.
• Examples include individualism/collectivism and
  team cohesion.
• Positive attitudes toward teamwork are necessary
  for developing knowledge and skills.

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Teamwork Knowledge

• Teamwork knowledge is defined as facts,
  principles, and concepts that help team members
  coordinate with one another.
• The earliest stages of knowledge acquisition
  involve a series of if-then production rules
  which require a great deal of cognitive
  resources.
• With sufficient practice, declarative knowledge
  becomes automatic, thereby requiring fewer
  cognitive resources.

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Teamwork Skills

• Teamwork skills are defined as the learned
  capacity to interact with one another in pursuit
  of a common goal.
• Teamwork skills can be classified into eight
  major categories

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Teamwork Competencies

• Although some teamwork competencies may be
  applicable to all types of teams, the environment
  may require additional competencies.
• Work characteristics include team membership
  stability, and geographical dispersion.
• Task characteristics include task stability,
  complexity, and interdependence.

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Teamwork Competencies
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Training Strategies

• Training strategies refer to the methods that are
  used to deliver the training content.
• With the exception of Team Coordination Training
  (TCT), none appear to have transitioned to
  non-military settings.

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Team Coordination Training

• Team Coordination Training (TCT) focuses on
  improving teamwork skills such as communication,
  situational awareness, and decision-making.
• Emphasis is placed on clarifying team member
  roles, responsibilities, and interdependencies.
• The training typically includes lecture,
  demonstration, and practice-based methods.
• TCT has been widely applied in aviation and is
  often referred to as Crew Resource Management
  (CRM) training.

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Team Self-Correction Training

• Team Self-Correction Training fosters an
  environment of continual learning by teaching the
  team members to routinely debrief their own
  performance.
• Team members are taught to identify their errors,
  diagnose the causes of these errors, develop and
  implement remedial strategies, and plan for the
  future.
• Initially, the training is facilitated by a
  trained instructor.
• The training typically includes lecture,
  demonstration, and practice-based methods.

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Cross-Training

• Cross-training is designed to helps team members
  to anticipate each others information needs.
• Cross-training improves team performance by
  exposing team members each others tasks, duties,
  and responsibilities.
• Doing so allows the team members to be proactive,
  rather than reactive.
• The training typically includes lecture,
  demonstration, and practice-based methods.

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Stress Exposure Training

• Stress Exposure Training (SET) is designed to
  offset the negative effects of stressors, such as
  lack of information, high time pressure, and high
  consequences of failure.
• SET provides information about what to expect
  during stressful situations, skills for
  mitigating the negative effects of stress, and
  the opportunity to practice during simulated
  conditions.
• Training takes place under graduated exposure to
  stressors using lecture, demonstration, and
  practice-based methods.

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Training Strategies

• All of these training strategies build on the
  basic principles that are taught during TCT/CRM.
• All of these training strategies have been shown
  to result in improved attitudes towards teamwork,
  increased knowledge of teamwork principles, and
  improved performance during simulated missions.

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Case Study Aviation

• CRM training initially focused on changing
  pilots attitudes toward human factors issues on
  the flight deck.
• With the introduction of the FAAs Advanced
  Qualification Program (AQP), CRM has integrated
  teamwork skills training with technical skills
  training.
• Under AQP, crews are trained and evaluated on
  their technical and teamwork skills in a
  high-fidelity simulator.

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Case Study Aviation

• We believe that aviation could benefit
  significantly by leveraging lower-cost strategies
  for training CRM skills.
• We believe that other training strategies such
  as team self-correction training could also
  yield improvements in aircrew performance.

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Case Study Healthcare

• Most team training programs were developed after
  the publication of To Err is Human, which
  concluded that medical errors kill up to 98,000
  people each year.
• To date, several team training programs have been
  developed in healthcare. They employ either
  classroom- or simulator-based approaches, but not
  both.

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Case Study Healthcare

• Few medical team training programs have begun
  with a comprehensive needs analysis.
• We believe that healthcare could benefit from the
  work of Cannon-Bowers and colleagues by
  considering teamwork competencies in relation to
  the task and team characteristics.
• Such research could be especially important in
  identifying the different teamwork competencies
  as a function of medical specialty.

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Case Study Healthcare

• We also believe that training strategies such
  as stress exposure training could be
  transitioned directly to healthcare.
• This is especially important, because many
  physicians perceive themselves to be immune from
  the negative effects of stress and fatigue.

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Impediments to Transition

• Historically, there have been several impediments
  to transitioning military research findings, such
  as
• The inaccessibility of military research,
• The impenetrable jargon (on all sides), and
• The it wasnt developed here attitude.
• Given the continuous reduction in Federal
  funding, we believe that now more than ever
  multiple industries need to coordinate their
  efforts to address problems such as error,
  safety, and efficiency.

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Recommendations

• In particular, we recommend that researchers
• Organize joint industry workshops, journals, and
  websites to discuss recent developments,
• Focus on the task and environmental demands,
  rather than the specific industry in which the
  research occurs, and
• Learn learn to speak one anothers languages, as
  well as the language of business.

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Contact Information

• Jeffrey M. Beaubien, Ph.D.
• Senior Research Scientist
• American Institutes for Research
• 1000 Thomas Jefferson Street, NW
• Washington, DC 20007-3835
• 202-342-5133
• jbeaubien_at_air.org