Frames in the flight deck: a sociological approach to situation awareness

Situation Awareness (SA) is the aviation term for the construct describing how actors extract meaning and make sense of their dynamically changing environment. Within the aviation domain, it is broadly acknowledged that SA plays a crucial role for pilots in coping with hazardous situations and its loss is cited as a significant factor in aircraft accidents and incidents. A broad range of psychologically based theories has been applied to conceptualise SA. The aim of this research thesis is to develop an alternative, sociologically based approach, largely drawn from Erving Goffman’s (1974) Frame Analysis, and assess whether it can be used to effectively describe, analyse and discuss SA. An open observation method was used to collect data in the flight deck during ten commercial international flight sectors conducted in an advanced wide-body aircraft. A running narrative of flight activity and associated context was recorded from a purposeful sample of flights operated by consenting flight crews. Data was managed in the NVIVO© qualitative software analysis program. Strips of activity associated with the establishment or maintenance of SA were identified and examined in accordance with key concepts derived from frame analysis. The results show that key concepts drawn from Goffman’s (1974) frame analysis are able to be applied to the coding and discussion of data. Several emergent themes describe distinct SA behaviours relating to frame establishment and maintenance. These behaviours include; frame confirming, questioning, seeking, setting, proposing, clearing, accepting, reviewing and anticipating. Some unique modifications are made to Goffman’s underlying concepts in order to address specific contextual issues emergent in flight deck operations. SA is supported as a meaningful construct in the aviation domain. This thesis establishes that Goffman’s (1974) general theory of frame analysis supports the major underlying concepts of the specific SA construct. Additionally, a method derived from frame analysis is used to examine and analyse the observed intersubjective SA processes. This analysis also develops several unique perspectives concerning flight crew task performance that have wide ranging implications in procedural design, training and airspace integration. Lastly, practitioner based notions of SA are shown to be equivalent to that of “frame.