I was fortunate enough to have been part of a study that did precisely
what Steve Swauger is asking about. The study was my wife's dissertation
and was conducted with Navy-support. It has been presented in various
parts at several conferences, but has not been fully published yet (she is
working on that). The study is, however, available through University
Microfilms International or, upon request, from my wife
(kim_jentsch_at_ntsc.navy.mil). Also, a follow-up study has been published in
the Journal of Applied Psychology, Feb. 1996 (Vol. 81, No. 1).
Before I tell you a little bit about the study, here is the Dissertation
Citation:
Smith, K. (1994). Narrowing the gap between performance and potential:
Towards a climate for teamwork. Unpublished doctoral dissertation,
University of South Florida, Tampa.
Anyway, here is the setup for the study:
In the study, 1/2 of the participating pilots received the Navy's
Assertiveness Aircrew Coordination Training (ACT) module (a 2 hour
classroom lecture-demonstration-role-play-feedback segment), the other
half did not. Also, in a fully factorial design, for 1/2 of the pilots, the
captain (who was part of the experiment, but the participants did not know
that) was supportive during the 5-minute preflight briefing, whereas
for the other half, he was not.
The pilots then flew a 45-minute flight in a PC-based simulator. Embedded
in the LOS-type simulation were several event sets that required the
pilots to display assertive behaviors (e.g., captain continues climb
through the assigned altitude and maintains that he was cleared higher,
although he really isn't).
The captains were all scripted to behave exactly the same during the
flight - only their behavior during the pre-flight briefing was
manipulated. In the supportive setting, the captain used a lot of "we"
statements. He also encouraged a third crewmember (who was part of the
experiment and played the role of a FE), who spoke up during the preflight
briefing but made a mistake, that it was ok to bring questions to the
captain's attention.
In the autocratic setting, the captain gave the same preflight briefing
but substituted "I" statements for the "we" statements above. Also, he
said "no, no, no, no, no, your wrong, it's always..., that's basic pilot
knowledge," when the third crewmember questioned the captain during the
preflight brief.
Anyway, the proof for what Steve Swauger suspected came in the simulation:
Overall, participants who had received the autocratic pre-flight briefing
performed significantly poorer than those who had received the supportive
pre-flight briefing. Even worse, only those participants who received the
supportive briefing transferred their assertiveness training. In other
words, whether you had had the assertiveness training only made a
difference if you were flying with the captain who gave you a supportive,
team-oriented preflight briefing. If you flew with the guy who was
autocratic during the preflight briefing, you might as well not have had
the training.
A note: The participants in this setup were relatively inexperienced,
novice aviators. However, since then, the Navy and UCF have conducted
other studies which seem to support the generalizability of these results.
Also, every captain or FO we met and have told about these results has
suported the notion that there is little reason to believe the results
wouldn't hold true with more experienced aviators.
Hope this helps. Please address questions about this study to me
(fjentsch_at_pegasus.cc.ucf.edu) or to my wife (kim_jentsch_at_ntsc.navy.mil).
Best regards,
Florian Jentsch, Ph.D.
Research Scientist
Team Performance Laboratory
University of Central Florida
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The opinions expressed here are exclusively mine, and may not represent
the views of the organizations involved in the support of the study.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Mon, 20 Apr 1998, Steve Swauger wrote:
>
> Hello All,
>
> I write a Human Factors article for our quarterly Pilot Safety
> magazine here at Southwest Airlines. I am working on the topic of
> Captain/First Officer interaction. Is anyone familiar with any research
> that has been done on the Captain's effect on the First Officer's
> performance? The perfect study I seek would have FO subjects trying to
> complete normal flight profile tasks. The Captains would be research aids
> assisting the FOs either supportively, neutrally, or negatively. The study
> would then measure the FO's performance objectively.
> Common sense and experience dictate that the supportive Captain
> would improve the FO's performance and the negative Captain would hurt the
> FO's performance. I would appreciate anything you can offer in this area.
>
> -Steve Swauger
>