Methodological Implications Of Confederate Use For Experimentation In Safety-Critical Domains

Keywords

Communication; Confederate; Methodology; Safety-critical

Abstract

Team environments include an interaction component that contributes to human performance and mission success. Investigating individual differences in these complex team environments allows researchers to study the interactions that affect every day complex tasks and determine if these types of team interactions influence the safety and effectiveness of successfully completing task components. Researchers must consider how to explore these individual differences during team interactions without introducing biases from other participants in the team. Thus, in order to control for these effects researchers can opt to enlist the help of a confederate. Confederates are individuals recruited by lead experimenters to play the role of a bystander, participant, or teammate. The researcher may choose to utilize the confederate in a way that the participant(s) remains unaware that the confederate has experience with the investigators and with the task throughout experimentation. This is most often the case. The experimenter requires the help of the confederate in order to either elicit specific behaviors, to observe verbal and non-verbal communication changes in real time, and/or to study individual performance and differences in team tasks. The intention of the experimenter is to investigate the individual behaviors and performance while also controlling experimental manipulations and reducing complexity and outside influence. However, little research exists on best methodological practices when using confederates, specifically in safety-critical domains such as intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance missions, firefighting, air traffic control, nuclear power plant operation, and medical fields. The present paper addresses details of experimental development when utilizing confederate approaches and training techniques in complex domains with specific operational examples.

Publication Date

1-1-2015

Publication Title

Procedia Manufacturing

Volume

3

Number of Pages

1233-1240

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2015.07.258

Socpus ID

85009964883 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85009964883

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