Effects of Interdisciplinary High Fidelity Simulations: A Look at Initial Industry Success in Aviation

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of interdisciplinary team training for aviation students at the collegiate level. As it stands, students in the aviation program are trained in academic silos creating a lack of a shared mental model between team members of different disciplines. Without a shared mental model, students in various disciplines are unaware of other’s knowledge and abilities related to their own. This proves problematic once on the job, where aviation students are required to work in teams consisting of members from all disciplines (Swan, Scarbrough, & Newell, 2010). With little to no prior training in teamwork between specializations, newly hired aviation employees may lack the interpositional knowledge, and teamwork skills, and abilities to perform adequately. In order to address this need for teamwork training in the aviation industry, a NASA funded high fidelity flight operation center unified system (FOCUS Lab) was developed to aid in developing aviation students’ teamwork skills. The FOCUS Lab simulates the environment in an airline’s Flight Operations Center. While studies show that participants of the FOCUS Lab like the training and are learning and improving across simulations despite the increasing difficulty level (Littlepage et al., 2013; Littlepage, Hein, Moffett, Craig, & Georgiou, 2015), there has not been a study looking to see if these skills transfer beyond the simulation. The purpose of the FOCUS Lab is to better prepare students for the workforce; however, if the skills do not transfer, then we cannot truly verify the success of the FOCUS Lab. The Research Question for this study was what are the effects of high fidelity simulation training on initial employment experiences? Participants consisted of aviation graduates from a large Southeastern University. Additionally, as a control group Industrial and Organizational Psychology graduates were contacted as well. Seven-hundred and three participants were contacted via e-mail and asked to complete an online Qualitrics quiz. Results from the survey suggested that those graduating from the FOCUS Lab had lower turnover intentions and demonstrated more adequate teamwork skills in interdependent work settings. Implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed.