| Though the workload placed on military decision-makers often hinders the achievement of optimal solutions, concern given issues such as methods unique to grouped individuals in acquiring, processing, and acting on information is often inadequate. The current research examined two levels of training, decision aiding, and homogeneity on group performance, using a personality concept classified 'action orientation'. Tasks concerned pre-flight safety assessments for military combat aircraft, and were performed by Army Cobra aviators. Dependent measures included a quality score composed of identified mishaps with contingencies for remediation, and time taken to complete tasks.;Advanced training produced an increase of over 41% in mean response quality when decision aids were allowed and 38% when not, though use of the aid caused increases in completion times during these situations of 12 and 14 minutes respectively. Collectively, the most highly trained participants allowed the aid produced improvements of more than four and one-half fold above less trained counterparts not provided an aid. Although the effect of group homogeneity was moderately correlated with two competing independent variables, when controlling for the variance accounted for by these, homogeneity was shown to be a significant predictor of performance.;Of primary significance, since performance was verified vacillating per level of training and with or without provision of a decision aid, the contingent theory of decision-making put forth proposing that actions taken are dependent upon the existing situation could be supported. Also supported were the propositions that decision-maker expertise fluctuates during the process as a consequence of circumstance, and that maintenance training and decision aiding conjoined should benefit the process, suggesting that human performance in such situations is malleable.;Thus, the intent of systems designers should be the development of practicable training programs and aiding systems aimed at overcoming human algorithmic reasoning limitations, while enhancing environments for heuristics rationale. In this, all levels of operator should benefit; the expert conferred restraint from insufficient alternative scans, the novice offered essential supplementary information. |
