Situation Awareness and Performance of Student versus Experienced Air Traffic Controllers

A human-in-the-loop simulation was conducted to examine performance, workload, and situation awareness of students and retired air traffic controllers using an on-line situation awareness probe technique. Performance of the students did not differ from the controllers on many of the performance variables examined, a finding attributed to extensive sector-specific simulation training provided to the students. Both students and controllers indicated that workload was higher and situation awareness was lower in scenarios where the traffic density was high. However, the subjective workload and situation awareness scores indicate that students were more negatively affected by traffic density. Implications of these findings are discussed.