Mental Engineering - A Significant Contribution to Resilience Engineering in Aviation

Currently, far reaching changes can be noticed at the core of human learning of complex tasks. The share of concrete learning diminishes in favor of digital and virtual learning methods, which offer enormous economical and organizational advantages – however by no means is it clear whether these changes effect solely efficiency, but also optimize the effectiveness of learning processes. These deficits surrounding manual flying skills, which can be observed globally, very clearly point towards these facts. With the learning methods suggested here, the main aim is to reduce the above deficits, by state-of-the-art stress- reducing procedures, as well as the systemic, evidence- and performance- based, virtual optimization of task performance. Mental Engineering (ME) is a psychological training method focused on the professional management of high- workload and emergency situations. It is a novel approach in that it skillfully combines mental practice and stress resilience management, two evidence based methods that have been widely-used in areas like aviation, sports science, business and economy. From a systemic point of view of mental practice can be seen as very effective individual instrument to build up personal resilience as a significant contribution to self- competence and proficiency. Personal resilience in operational context reinforces organizational resilience

Model of military pilot education and training from the aspect of new aircraft acquisition

Military pilot education, including flight training is a long, expensive and complex process. The main goal is to produce as many skilled professionals ready to perform flight tasks on the front-line aircraft and push them to the limits with complete control. To achieve this goal it is necessary to select and educate young people with aptitude and abilities to perform the most demanding military flight tasks. The creation of the model of military pilot education and training hardly depends on aircraft types, which are used in operational service in the front-line units. The acquisition of new aircraft imposes the change of the model of military pilot education. This paper describes the possible model of military pilot education from the aspect of the acquisition of the new aircraft in the Serbian Air Force

Realidade virtual : quasi-transferência de competências cognitivas (representação espacial e consciência situacional) a partir de simuladores de voo

Tese de mestrado, Ciências da Educação (Tecnologias Educativas), Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto de Educação, 2011O problema deste estudo consistiu em analisar se existe transferência de competências cognitivas (representação espacial e consciência situacional) do simulador não imersivo instalado num computador pessoal para o simulador semi-imersivo semelhante ao cockpit de um avião. Tentou-se resolver este problema, num quadro de quasi-transferência, através da constituição de um grupo experimental e de um grupo de controlo com o propósito de estudar a relação entre o treino em simulador não imersivo e o desempenho em simulador semi-imersivo, em termos de competências cognitivas de representação espacial e de consciência situacional. O grupo experimental participou numa simulação em um simulador não imersivo e de seguida participou numa simulação em um simulador semi-imersivo. O grupo de controlo apenas participou numa simulação em um simulador semi-imersivo. Foi utilizada uma prova colectiva de desenvolvimento lógico para controlar os resultados obtidos, aplicadas provas de navegação e de consciência situacional e analisados os dados através da aplicação de testes não paramétricos U de Mann Whitney ao nível de significância α= 0,05. Desta forma pretendia-se inferir que existem elementos comuns entre os simuladores que promovem uma transferência de aprendizagens. Não encontrámos valores estatísticos que sustentem as hipóteses do estudo. Sendo assim concluímos que não ocorre transferência entre os simuladores de voo não imersivo e semiimersivo, em termos de competências de navegação horizontal e vertical e em termos de competências de consciência situacional: percepção, compreensão e projecção. Os resultados encontrados sugerem a possibilidade da existência de uma transferência negativa em categorias em que ocorreu um decréscimo do desempenho: navegação vertical e compreensão.The problem of this study consisted in analyze if there is cognitive skills transfer (spatial representation and situational awareness) from the non immersive flight simulator installed in a personal computer to a semi-immersive flight simulator similar to an airplane cockpit. This problem was attempted to be solved, in a quasi-transfer framework, through the formation of experimental and control groups to study the relationship between nonimmersive simulator training and semi-immersive performance, in terms of cognitive skills of spatial representation and situational awareness. The experimental group participated previously in a simulation in a non-immersive simulator and afterwards in a simulation in a semi-immersive simulator. The control group participated merely in a simulation in a semi-immersive simulator. It was used a collective cognitive development test to control the results, applied navigational and situational awareness tests and data was analyzed through the application of Mann Whitney U non parametric tests at the significance level α=0,05. This way, it has been tried to infer that there are common elements between the simulators which promote learning transfer. It was concluded that transfer does not occurs between the non-immersive and semiimmersive flight simulators, in terms of horizontal and vertical navigational skills and in terms of situational awareness skills: perception, comprehension and projection. We have not found statistical values that sustain this study hypothesis therefore we conclude that transfer between non-immersive and semi-immersive flight simulators - in terms of horizontal and vertical navigational skills and in terms of perception, comprehension and projection situational awareness skills - does not occurs. The results suggest the possibility of a negative transfer presence in such categories featuring a performance decrease: vertical navigation and comprehension

An audio-visual educational program adapted to the specific needs of the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades of the High Point Junior High School

The increasing interest in the improvement of instruction in the public schools of North Carolina for the past few years focused attention on the audio-visual education program now being developed in this country. Many indictments have been hurled against the effectiveness of our instruction in language arts and other areas of the curriculum by business men, members of college faculties, and more recently by examiners of military candidates. They realize the necessity for knowing and using a wide variety of materials in securing the development of functional knowledge and understanding. As a result, teachers are realizing that audio-visual aids give to pupils insight, understanding and the ability to remember