The Calm Cockpit podcast - mental performance

Mental performance training is quite common in the sports world, but not (yet) in aviation. Some are ahead of the game, as this episode from The Calm Cockpit shows. Tammy Barlette explains insights into performance…

Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory

The short paper linked here provides an overview of Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory, which is widely used in instructional design. It is particularly useful for designing instruction that optimizes cognitive load f…

Effects of Acute Stress on Aircrew Performance: a NASA review

An easily readable source of quality information on the effects of stress and its impact on attention, decision making and teamwork, NASA’s technical memorandum Effects of Acute Stress on Aircrew Performance e…

Followership

Followership is a topic that I always found it hard to find training content for. I never really liked the term either, as it gives a feeling of subservience…

This podcast by Ben Hutchinson sheds some light on…

Problem Solving/Decision Making

and Procedures for Unexpected events Unexpected events in aviation disrupt crews’ expectations, increase stress and workload, and require rapid sensemaking rather than simple checklist use. This paper argues that s…

The many schools of decision making

In this handy overview, Jared Peterson explains the different decision making theories in a handy summary.

Multiple Resource Theory

This video by Laureen Harris explains Christopher Wickens’ MRT theory – using Gordon Ramsay as an example.

Gigerenzer - the rationality wars - a different look at heuristics and biases in decision making.

In this interesting article, esteemed psychologist Gigerenzer offers a critique of Kahnemann and Tversky, who often label heuristics and biases as flawed, while overlooking their effectiveness in real world…

Teaming

Business school professor Amy Edmondson, known for her work on psychological safety, explains “teaming,” where people come together quickly (and often temporarily) to solve new, urgent or unusual problems

Pacific and Australasian CRM Developers and Facilitators Forum Conference Presentations

The PACDEFF (Pacific and Australasian CRM Developers and Facilitators Forum) conference is the place to go for CRM developers and facilitators. In their extensive archives section you can find many of the…

Resilience Engineering 101

In this brilliant video series, professor David Woods talks about resilience engineering (building resilience into complex systems).

Pilot Mental Health

William R. Hoffman, MD is a neurologist and aircrew brain health researcher with an interest in aeromedical screening and healthcare behavior. He is an affiliated assistance professor of aviation at the University…

Work related stress

Paul Cullen has been a vocal advocate for pilot mental health. Several of his studies are open access, and can be found through Google Scholar. The article below explores the impact of work-related stress (WRS) on…

The Evolution of Crew Resource Management Training in Commercial Aviation

This overview by Helmreich et al. details the history and development of CRM describing the five “generations” of CRM’s evolution.
The paper is from 1996 and describes the evolution of the first four gener…

Cognitive bias

Biases can negatively influence decision making. Skybrary offers a nice overview of a few of the most common biases that affect pilot decision making.

Safety Culture

This FAA document, Safety Culture Assessment and Continuous Improvement in Aviation, reviews the importance of fostering a positive safety culture within aviation organizations.

Hofstede’s cultural dimensions

A classic in cultural difference literature is the work by Geert Hofstede: his 6 cultural dimensions( Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism/Collectivism, Masculinity/Femininity, Long/Short Term…

The Five Factor Model of personality traits.

The Five-Factor Model (FFM), or Big 5 personality traits, is the most widely accepted framework for understanding human personality.

Reflections on Teams: Salas et al.(2018) review the state of science on teamwork.

The document, The Science of Teamwork: Progress, Reflections, and the Road Ahead, by Eduardo Salas and colleagues, reflects on nearly a century of research on teams. It highlights 10 key insights.

Prospective memory - how to remember your future intentions

As pilots, we often have to postpone things until later. There isn’t always a checklist to catch us. How to deal with that? This article that explains what prospective memory is all about.

Psychological safety and interpersonal skills

Psychological safety and interpersonal skills by Kimberly Perkins, focussed on pilots.

The Eisenhower Matrix (setting priorities)

The Eisenhower Matrix (setting priorities)

Visual Illusions

A great overview of the topic by the FlightSafety Foundation in their Approach and Landing Accident Reduction (ALAR) series.

Flight crew briefings with resilience engineering capacity

In this article Mizzi and McCarthy from Griffith university take a look at flight crew briefings and explain how to incorporate TEM and improve resilience.

S&S - evaluation of a startle management method in practice

In the article below, details of an operational evaluation of a startle management method are shared. The method is similar to that described in the EASA/NLR report.

Gary Klein's Pre-mortem method ("prospective hindsight").

In this article, originally published in Harvard Business Review, Gary Klein explains his pre-mortem method himself. It’s a useful tool for employing critical thinking to make a risk assessment before taking a…

Accident case studies on Skybrary

SKYbrary offers a useful database of accident reports that are useful for CRM case studies

Facilitation

Dismukes and colleagues (NASA) explain what facilitation is in an aviation context and why one should use it in this first chapter of their book Facilitation and Debriefing in Aviation Training and Operations.

Bloom's Taxonomy

A useful description of Bloom’s taxonomy, by the University of Arkansas. Essential knowledge for any training designer.

Basic communication model (SMCR)

In this article, a simple description is given of the SMCR (Sender, Message, Channel, Receiver) is given. For CRM trainers, it can use as a useful starting point for a case discussion on the topic of communication.

Blanchard&Hersey situational leadership - group activity

This useful summary explains the situational leadership model. Although aimed at (business) management, it is a useful model in the cockpit too. A useful group activity is having trainees fill in the four quadrants…

Ofman's Core Quadrant model

Toolshero explains Ofman’s core quadrant model, a useful tool for communication and behavior.

Human Factors workbook - CASA

The Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority has put together this Human Factors workbook for pilots, an interesting series of PDF booklets and accompanying videos covering topics such as Safety Culture, Human…

Safety and error management: The role of Crew ResourceManagement

In this paper, Helmreich et al. discuss EMCRM: error management CRM (5th generation CRM).

Does CRM work?

In this seminal paper, Salas et al discuss the state of CRM.

Safety Differently - the movie

Professor Sidney Dekker explains what safety differently (or the new view of safety) is. Three organisations are followed, one in resources, one in healthcare and one in retail.

The Matt Walker podcast series on sleep

Dr. Matt Walker, author of the book Why We Sleep, discusses sleep in this excellent podcast series. Many episodes are relevant for aviation, for example, What is Sleep, Sleep and Caffeine, Sleep and Alcohol and many more.

The Rose of Leary

The rose of leary is a useful tool for understanding and influencing behavior.

The Johari Window

The Johari window: a tool to understand yourself, used to demonstrate how feedback can help to reduce your “blind spots” about the way you are perceived by others.

Decision Making Videos

Website with decision making videos.

Decision Making in Action - Models and Methods

A classic book on decision making. Seminal work on Naturalistic Decision making.

Rhode Island - UA1448 incident

Takeoff incident on a dark foggy night, situation awareness and communication case study

Case study: AA965 by Oklahoma State University

This accident is an example of how poor workload management affects situation awareness.

Safety I and II - The Full Story

In this series of 3 podcasts, David Provan and Drew Rae explain the full story behind safety I and II.

Just culture in three podcast episodes

In these three episodes of The Safety of Work, David Provan and Drew Rae explain the full story of Just Culture.

Boundaries of failure — Rasmussen’s model of how accidents happen.

A great description of how accidents happen based on Rasmussen’s safety model

Automation Surprise

In this interesting scientific paper, Sydney Dekker and Robert-Jan de Boer investigate Automation Surprise. A model of automation surprise based on sense-making is presented. https://www.mdpi.com/2313-576X/3/3/20

Crew Resource Management - Dynamic Model (CRM-DYMO).

In this interesting paper, Don Harris and colleagues look into the interrelationship of the various pilot competences and present their CRM dynamic model.

CRM training design - Salas

A useful checklist for Crew Resource Management training design.

Safety behaviour, procedures and knowledge

A video on Skybrary by capt Ed Pooley. Includes case studies and tips for improvement of procedural adherance.