Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
TABLE 36.4 ACTA Probes
Basic probes
Past and future Is there a time when you walked into the middle of a situation and knew exactly
how things got there and where they were headed?
Big picture Can you give me an example of what is important about the big picture for this
task? What are the major elements you have to know and keep track of?
Noticing Have you had experiences where part of a situation just “popped” out at you;
where you noticed things going on that others did not catch? What is an
example?
Job smarts When you do this task, are there ways of working smart or accomplishing more
with less — that you have found especially useful?
Opportunities
/
improvising Can you think of an example when you have improvised in this task or noticed
an opportunity to do something better?
Self-monitoring Can you think of a time when you realized that you would need to change the
way you were performing in order to get the job done?
Optional probes
Anomalies Can you describe an instance when you spotted a deviation from the norm, or
knew something was amiss?
Equipment difficulties Have there been times when the equipment pointed in one direction but your
own judgment told you to do something else? Or when you had to rely on
experience to avoid being led astray by the equipment?
Simulation interview probes
As the (job you are investigating) in this scenario, what actions, if any, would you take at this point in time?
What do you think is going on here? What is your assessment of the situation at this point in time?
What pieces of information led you to this situation assessment and these actions?
What errors would an inexperienced person be likely to make in this situation?
Source: Militello, L. G., and Hutton, J. B. (2000). In J. Annett and N. A. Stanton (Eds), Task Analysis, pp. 90-113. London:
Taylor & Francis. With permission.
Table 36.6. From the CDM analyses, it is possible to develop a propositional network that represents the
ideal collection of knowledge objects for the scenario. A propositional network for the scenario is pre-
sented in Figure 36.1.
36.6.3.4 Critical Incident Technique (Flanagan, 1954)
The technique that most associate with the origins of CTA, the critical incident technique (CIT) was first
used by Flanagan (1954) to analyze aircraft incidents that almost led to accidents and has since been used
extensively and developed in the form of CDM (Klein et al., 1989). The CIT involves using an interview-
based approach in order to facilitate operator recall of critical events or incidents, including the actions
and decisions made by themselves and colleagues and why they made them. Examples of the CIT probes
used by Flanagan (1954) are:
.
Describe what led up to the situation
.
Exactly what did the person do or not do that was especially effective or ineffective
.
What was the outcome or result of this action?
.
Why was this action effective or what more effective action might have been expected?
36.6.3.5 Cognitively Oriented Task Analysis (DuBois and Shalin, 2000)
The cognitively oriented task analysis (COTA) approach comprises a set of procedures that are used to
describe the expertise that supports overall job performance (DuBois and Shalin, 2000). According to
DuBois and Shalin (2000), the COTA approach comprises three phases: planning, describing job exper-
tise, and developing CTA products. The planning phase has three main aims, which are to define the
project goals, resources, and constraints, to develop a preliminary description of work context and
tasks performed, and to specify a sampling plan for conducting the required knowledge elicitation
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