Collegial Collaboration for Safety: Assessing Situation Awareness by Exploring Cognitive Strategies

Results from cognitive field studies using a method developed for knowledge elicitation in applied contexts are reviewed. A model for verbal probing procedures is presented. The model is used to assess situation awareness in dynamic decision making contexts – colleagues explore each other’s cognitive strategies. The objective is to promote a discussion on whether collegial collaboration based on verbal probing procedures for knowledge elicitation of cognitive strategies is a good way to achieve resilience in socio-technical systems. The design of a study to be carried out in an intensive care unit is presented. The domain of interest, the tasks carried out, and the strategies employed by the nurses seem to be available for further analyses. It is suggested that analyses must only be carried out by the personnel themselves, in teams of experienced colleagues, as a way to achieve a safety culture that promotes reporting of incidents in intensive care.