Abstract
Training for enhanced team performance currently offers several challenges in both delivery of training and assessment of outcomes. If a team is performing poorly, is it a problem with teaming skills, with individual task-specific skills, with the cognitive readiness of the individuals on the team, or with the cognitive readiness of the team itself? Individuals that have been trained on basic teaming skills—i.e., how to perform as a team member or leader in a team—may demonstrate very poor performance on team-based tasks when they are not cognitively ready to perform those tasks. Moreover, the team as a whole may demonstrate poor performance even if certain individuals within the team are cognitively ready. We present our efforts to improve the performance of teams solely by enhancing the cognitive readiness of the team members through individual, consistent training. We developed a game-based training system to enhance the cognitive readiness of U.S. Navy recruits on shipboard damage control activities. Performance of individuals acting independently on a real-world transfer task showed a highly significant, broad-based improvement in individual performance as a result of playing the game. Performance of teams on several real-world transfer tasks showed significant improvements on several performance dimensions after playing the game as individuals. The results indicate that individual training on the cognitive readiness skills of situational awareness, communication, and decision-making may have a strong impact on the performance of teams. We discuss our results and the challenges in assessing team performance in a dynamic, noisy team environment. We present our recommendations for further studies in training and assessing team cognitive readiness.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the VESSEL team for their efforts in developing the game and supporting the studies, including Bruce Roberts, John Ostwald, Kerry Moffitt, Ray Tomlinson, and Todd Wright at Raytheon BBN Technologies; Curtiss Murphy, Chris Rodgers, Brad Anderegg, and David Guthrie at Alion Science and Technology; Katelyn Procci and Lucas Blair at the University of Central Florida; Kelly Pounds at IDEAS; and Susan Coleman and Ellen Menaker at Intelligent Decisions Systems, Inc. We also would like to thank Mr. John Drake and, previously, Dr. Rodney Chapman at the Naval Service Training Command and the staff at the RTC for their support and participation. The research presented in this chapter was conducted under Office of Naval Research contract number N00014-08-C-0030, under the management of Dr. Ray Perez. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Office of Naval Research.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Observer Form for Individual Study
The items in the observer form in this appendix are notated with the cognitive readiness skill they indicate as follows: D for decision-making, C for communication, and S for situational awareness.
Appendix 2: Observer Forms for Team Study
The items in the observer forms in this appendix are notated with the cognitive readiness skill they indicate as follows: D for decision-making, C for communication, and S for situational awareness. H denotes help given or sought.
2.1 Appendix 2.1: Flooding Magazine Compartment Scenario Observer Form
2.2 Appendix 2.2: Bridge Watch Scenario: Bridge Talker Observer Form
All items in this form indicate the cognitive readiness skill of communication.
2.3 Appendix 2.3: Bridge Watch Scenario: Conning Officer Observer Form
All items in this form indicate the cognitive readiness skill of communication.
2.4 Appendix 2.4: Roving Security Watch Scenario Observer Form
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Hussain, T.S., Bowers, C., Blasko-Drabik, H. (2014). Impact of Individual Game-Based Training on Team Cognitive Readiness. In: O'Neil, H., Perez, R., Baker, E. (eds) Teaching and Measuring Cognitive Readiness. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7579-8_17
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