Student Research Opportunities in Aviation Human Factors

When most people think of jobs in aviation or at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), they think of pilots, Air Traffic Controllers, Maintainers, etc., those directly involved in the movement of aircraft, passengers, and cargo. However, to safely move over 26K passengers (avg) daily requires many diverse occupations. Included within the complexity of aviation operations are individuals with backgrounds in Psychology, Human Factors, and Instructional Design. It is important to raise awareness of the diversity of aviation jobs and pathways to achieving those opportunities, to attract a diverse next generation workforce. The Human Factors Research Division at the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI) established a volunteer research program for STEM outreach and to give opportunities for students to conduct research on a broad array of topics in aviation, including job analysis for Air Traffic Organization jobs, Safety Culture, and Stress Management training for Air Traffic Controller students at the FAA Academy. Under this program, undergraduate or graduate students take an active role in conducting research activities alongside a CAMI Principal Investigator (PI). This program allows the students to take part in real-world operational research under the supervision of an experienced researcher and contribute to the overall Human Factors Division goals. This program also delivers periodic seminars with other PIs and research presentations by scientists outside of the FAA. These experiences increase awareness of the different types of research and job opportunities in aviation. Our goal is that this knowledge will empower students from diverse backgrounds to pursue aviation careers

An extended case study on the phenomenology of sequence-space synesthesia

Investigation of synesthesia phenomenology in adults is needed to constrain accounts of developmental trajectories of this trait. We report an extended phenomenological investigation of sequence-space synesthesia in a single case (AB). We used the Elicitation Interview (EI) method to facilitate repeated exploration of AB's synesthetic experience. During an EI the subject's attention is selectively guided by the interviewer in order to reveal precise details about the experience. Detailed analysis of the resulting 9 h of interview transcripts provided a comprehensive description of AB's synesthetic experience, including several novel observations. For example, we describe a specific spatial reference frame (a "mental room") in which AB's concurrents occur, and which overlays his perception of the real world (the "physical room"). AB is able to switch his attention voluntarily between this mental room and the physical room. Exemplifying the EI method, some of our observations were previously unknown even to AB. For example, AB initially reported to experience concurrents following visual presentation, yet we determined that in the majority of cases the concurrent followed an internal verbalization of the inducer, indicating an auditory component to sequence-space synesthesia. This finding is congruent with typical rehearsal of inducer sequences during development, implicating cross-modal interactions between auditory and visual systems in the genesis of this synesthetic form. To our knowledge, this paper describes the first application of an EI to synesthesia, and the first systematic longitudinal investigation of the first-person experience of synesthesia since the re-emergence of interest in this topic in the 1980's. These descriptions move beyond rudimentary graphical or spatial representations of the synesthetic spatial form, thereby providing new targets for neurobehavioral analysis

Predicting Scientific Creativity: The Role of Adversity, Collaborations, and Work Procedures

There is little doubt that career experiences are held to contribute to scientific achievement, however this relationship has yet to be thoroughly investigated in terms the effects on scientific creativity. In the present study, a historiometric approach was used to examine three areas of adult career experiences common to scientific achievement through the use of biographies. In doing so, prior theoretical work was used to identify career experiences relevant to scientific achievement, and three theoretical models were proposed to account for these experiences - adversity, collaborations, and work strategies. Biographies of eminent scientists were then content coded and analyzed using the components of the three models. The results indicated that the adversity model did not predict scientific creativity, however, the work strategies model and, to some degree, the collaborations model showed some promise in understanding the development of creative potential in scientists. The nature of the significant relationships among the model components and scientific creativity are discussed in addition to their implications for the development of the creative potential of scientists

Online Dating Experiences with Filtering Profile Photos

This study is a qualitative, phenomenological analysis of male Tinder users’ experiences with women over-filtering their visual self-presentation on Tinder using augmented reality (AR) smartphone technology. Tinder users frequently discuss how their dates do not live up to their profile photographs once they meet face-to-face due to the proliferation of filtered photos on dating apps and social media to make themselves appear more attractive. Augmented reality, Tinder, social media, and smartphone filtering are all ingrained in pop culture, yet have not been previously studied. Eight male Tinder users were recruited and interviewed. Coding and thematic analysis were used in this descriptive phenomenological study to analyze and interpret the data. The richness of these experiences provided six themes: filtering out the filters, filtering is expected, online competition and social pressure, multiple types of deception in online photos, negative affect of first impressions, and chemistry and attraction are important. The findings of this research illustrate the challenges visual self-presentation, authenticity, interpersonal chemistry, online competition and social pressure, technologies creating deception and negative affect, and the commonality of filtering technologies being used to alter online photos pose on face-to-face dating impressions. The implications for positive social change include the potential to help current and future Tinder users recognize and manage their visual self-presentations as reflections of their actual self and face-to-face encounters to avoid deceptive behaviors and self-sabotage to gain positive dating experiences and relationship building

Risk of Performance and Behavioral Health Decrements Due to Inadequate Cooperation, Coordination, Communication, and Psychosocial Adaptation within a Team

A team is defined as: "two or more individuals who interact socially and adaptively, have shared or common goals, and hold meaningful task interdependences; it is hierarchically structured and has a limited life span; in it expertise and roles are distributed; and it is embedded within an organization/environmental context that influences and is influenced by ongoing processes and performance outcomes" (Salas, Stagl, Burke, & Goodwin, 2007, p. 189). From the NASA perspective, a team is commonly understood to be a collection of individuals that is assigned to support and achieve a particular mission. Thus, depending on context, this definition can encompass both the spaceflight crew and the individuals and teams in the larger multi-team system who are assigned to support that crew during a mission. The Team Risk outcomes of interest are predominantly performance related, with a secondary emphasis on long-term health; this is somewhat unique in the NASA HRP in that most Risk areas are medically related and primarily focused on long-term health consequences. In many operational environments (e.g., aviation), performance is assessed as the avoidance of errors. However, the research on performance errors is ambiguous. It implies that actions may be dichotomized into "correct" or "incorrect" responses, where incorrect responses or errors are always undesirable. Researchers have argued that this dichotomy is a harmful oversimplification, and it would be more productive to focus on the variability of human performance and how organizations can manage that variability (Hollnagel, Woods, & Leveson, 2006) (Category III1). Two problems occur when focusing on performance errors: 1) the errors are infrequent and, therefore, difficult to observe and record; and 2) the errors do not directly correspond to failure. Research reveals that humans are fairly adept at correcting or compensating for performance errors before such errors result in recognizable or recordable failures. Astronauts are notably adept high performers. Most failures are recorded only when multiple, small errors occur and humans are unable to recognize and correct or compensate for these errors in time to prevent a failure (Dismukes, Berman, Loukopoulos, 2007) (Category III). More commonly, observers record variability in levels of performance. Some teams commit no observable errors but fail to achieve performance objectives or perform only adequately, while other teams commit some errors but perform spectacularly. Successful performance, therefore, cannot be viewed as simply the absence of errors or the avoidance of failure Johnson Space Center (JSC) Joint Leadership Team, 2008). While failure is commonly attributed to making a major error, focusing solely on the elimination of error(s) does not significantly reduce the risk of failure. Failure may also occur when performance is simply insufficient or an effort is incapable of adjusting sufficiently to a contextual change (e.g., changing levels of autonomy)

Tweaking the Charge Transfer: Bonding Analysis of Bismuth(III) Complexes with a Flexidentate Phosphane Ligand

To account for the charge transfer and covalent character in bonding between P and Bi centers, the electronic structures of [P(C6H4-o-CH2SCH3)3BiCln](3–n)+ (n = 0–3) model species have been investigated computationally. On the basis of this survey a synthetic target compound with a dative P→Bi bond has been selected. Consecutively, the highly reactive bismuth cage [P(C6H4-o-CH2SCH3)3Bi]3+ has been accessed experimentally and characterized. Importantly, our experiments (single-crystal X-ray diffraction and solid-state NMR spectroscopy) and computations (NBO and AIM analysis) reveal that the P···Bi bonding in this trication can be described as a dative bond. Here we have shown that our accordion-like molecular framework allows for tuning of the interaction between P and Bi centers

Burnout in Virginia’s Community College Adjuncts With Relation to Gender, Age, and Number of Jobs

Burnout is a psychological condition that affects individuals in high stress careers; including higher education faculty are prone. Research suggests women experience burnout at different ages than males. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study is to apply existing theory to determine if a predictive relationship exists between burnout, emotional exhaustion, and the linear combination of age, gender, and the number of additional jobs held for community college adjunct faculty. Part-time faculty (247) from the Virginia Community College System provided data anonymously. Based on a multiple regression models, age was the primary predictor of emotional exhaustion, but data analysis indicated additional variables need to be considered. A small sample size hindered the generalizability of the results, but it was discovered that males and females between the ages of 26 and 50 were more likely to experience emotional exhaustion

Promoting Active Engagement with Text-Based Resources in Large First-Year Modules in History

In large courses it can be particularly challenging to engage students in active reading practices. The shift over the last decade to the use of digital sources, and during the pandemic the adoption of online teaching, has further exacerbated the problem. In this paper, we discuss our strategies for engaging large classes (150-250 students) in active reading through use of Talis Elevate, a social annotation tool. We outline two case studies in which we used social annotation and observed a significant increase in student engagement. We propose a new concept, 'active online reading' , which combines structured individual commenting tasks with responding to other students' annotations to enhance learning. This concept has relevance not only in our reading-rich discipline of History but also across higher education more generally

Training the 8-Balls: Psychological Readiness Preparation for the 2013 US Astronaut Class

No abstract availabl

Reading through the Pandemic: Promoting Active Digital Engagement with Text-Based Resources

This small-scale study highlights some of the challenges faced teaching first-year undergraduate History students during the Covid-19 pandemic in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 academic years and outlines the strategies that were put in place to address them. The article describes how Talis Elevate, an online tool that enables students to engage actively and collaboratively with digitised readings, was deployed across a range of first-year modules in History at the University of Lincoln. Feedback from staff and students is analysed, alongside user data collected by the Talis Elevate tool. The article demonstrates that a structured approach to engaging students in online reading tasks in preparation for class functioned effectively as a driver for student learning, but that some of the issues associated with engaging students in face-to-face teaching spaces, such as the reluctance of some students to contribute to discussion, were replicated online