The role of organizational and individual variables in aircraft maintenance performance

Aviation maintenance has been identified by the FAA as an area where better efficiency is needed to cope with ever increasing workloads. However, aviation maintenance has also been identified as one of the major causes of accidents. Consequently, if further efficiencies are to be achieved, they cannot come at the cost of reduced safety margins. The present study employed a safety climate approach to assist in the development of a model that can help to explain morale, psychological health, turnover intentions, and error in the aviation maintenance environment. An instrument called the Maintenance Environment Survey was developed and administered to 240 personnel responsible for maintenance of a large military helicopter fleet. Data collected through the survey were used to develop a structural model that predicted 45 per cent of the variance in psychological health, 67 per cent of the variance in morale, 27 per cent of the variance in turnover intentions, and 44 per cent of the variance in self-reported maintenance errors. The model shows the pathways through which organizational level and individual level variables can influence work outcomes and leads to suggestions for interventions that can help to improve maintenance efficiency

Research on the Progressive Achievement Tests and academic achievement in secondary schools

Psychometric testing can be used for many purposes. In the present case, ACER's Progressive Achievement Test battery was used to assess vocabulary, comprehension, and numeracy skill levels of students commencing study at a regional high school. The tests were used as a screening tool to identify students who might benefit from additional instruction and also to select high achieving students for participation in extension work, maths competitions, and the like. Test results were later correlated with performance in various school subjects over the five years of high school. Results indicated that the tests predicted up to 50% of the variance in school performance five years after the actual testing date. These data point to the continuing significance of students having a good vocabulary, being able to comprehend written text, and having good numeracy skills

Maintenance environment survey (MES) (1st version)

This document contains the first version of a safety climate survey developed for use in aviation maintenance. The survey formed the basis of an article published in the Journal of Applied Aviation Studies. The published article contains the validation data (reliabilities, correlations, etc) and is cited in this technical document, along with the article's ePrints address where it can be downloaded free of charge. The survey is also free

Response bias in computerized tests

[Abstract]: Choosing a response format is a problem when designing computerised tests. Programmers often solve this problem by highlighting a response option and allowing the user to select this option or choose another by using the cursor keys. It is possible that such well-meaning attempts to make computers more userfriendly may heighten response style tendencies. The two experiments to be reported in this study were designed to test the effect of cursor positioning in personality and ability tests. In the first experiment, sixty two Participants were randomly assigned to two groups and asked to complete computerised versions of Forms A and B of the Eysenck Personality Inventory. The position of the highlight was manipulated to produce a two-by-two factorial design with repeated measures on one factor. Results showed that there was evidence of a cursor effect but that it was confined to one of the conditions in the design. Experiment two employed the same sort of manipulation in a computerised version of the ACER Word Knowledge Test with another sample of 36 participants. Here, no evidence was found for any effect of cursor positioning. Overall, it was concluded that the highlighting technique itself is unlikely to have any effect on measures of cognitive ability but that it may have some effect in the more subjective personality testing domain

Maintenance environment survey (MES) (2nd version)

This document contains the second version of Fogarty's (2004, 2005) Maintenance Environment Survey. All items are listed under relevant scale headings and the response format is specified. The ePrints addresses of relevant validation papers are also cited. The survey is free of charge

The war on error: psychology and aviation maintenance

[Conclusion]: [Looks at research that is best captured by the term 'Human Factors' - a branch of psychology that draws upon many other fields of psychology for its theoretical and methodological foundations. As stated in a popular introductory text to this field (Wickens, Lee, Liu, & Becker, 2004), the goals of human factors are to: reduce error, increase safety, increase productivity, and increase comfort. This particular research concentrates primarily on the area of maintenance error in the aviation industry.] The safety literature tends to be dominated by discussions of error taxonomies and descriptive models of accident causation, such as the Reason model. I see these contributions as valuable but I also believe that they must be supported by empirical research. Structural equation modelling is a technique that can be used to test assumptions embedded in popular descriptions of accident causation. Through these various studies, we have developed, tested, and cross-validated models that explain how errors can occur in safety-conscious industries. We have also shown how they are linked with violations. In ongoing research, we are seeking to extend the model to include incident reporting, another key psychological variable in the quest to achieve safer and more productive working environments. [In conclusion], one of the lessons we have learned is that human error cannot be eliminated but it can be reduced if we take the trouble to look beyond its immediate causes and study the complex set of circumstances that lies behind any accident or incident

Challenging the 'Law of diminishing returns'

[Abstract]: 'The Law of Diminishing Returns' (Spearman, 1927) states that the size of the average correlation between cognitive tasks tends to be relatively small in high ability groups and relatively high in low ability groups. Studies supporting this finding have tended to contrast very low ability subjects (IQ < 78) with subjects from higher ability ranges and to use tests that have poor discriminatory power among the higher ability levels. In the first study described in this paper, tasks that provide good discrimination among the higher ability levels were used. A sample of High ability (N = 25) and of Low ability (N = 20) 15-years old boys completed four single tests, two with low and two with high g saturations, and two competing tasks formed from these single tests. The results indicated that, contrary to the predictions of the Law of Diminishing Returns, the amount of common variance was greater in the High ability group. It is suggested that the Law of Diminishing Returns does not take into account the factor of task difficulty and that there are situations where the exact reverse of this law holds. A second study again compared correlations obtained with extreme groups (N=28 & N=29), this time on measures of Perceptual Speed, which are easy for all ability levels. Results indicated that correlations among the Perceptual Speed measures were the same for both groups. In neither of these studies was there any support for the Law, which seems to be dependent on the very high correlations obtained from samples at the extreme lower end of the ability continuum

A questionnaire to measure safety climate, fatigue, stress, violations and errors

This document contains psychometric data for an instrument that was used to measure safety climate, fatigue, stress, violations and errors in an aviation maintenance setting [Fogarty, G. J. & Buikstra, E. (2008). A test of direct and indirect pathways linking safety climate, psychological health, and unsafe behaviours. International Journal of Applied Aviation Studies, 8 (2), 199-210]. The document also contains the items used to form the various scales

Differences between values of Australian Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students

[Abstract]: In this study, the Values Questionnaire developed by Schwartz and Bilsky (1987, 1990) was used to examine differences in the values held by a group of Aboriginal university students (N=112) and a group of non-Aboriginal students (N=106) studying at an Australian university. Results indicated that the Aboriginal group placed greater emphasis on values associated with Tradition, Conformity and Security and significantly less emphasis on values associated with Achievement, Self-direction, Stimulation, Hedonism and Benevolence. These data, in conjunction with a separate analysis of the ten highest ranked values for each group, support the view that the main differences between the groups lie in values serving collective (Aboriginal) as opposed to individual (non-Aboriginal) interests. These findings are consistent with previous research (eg. Christie, 1987) on the world view of traditional Aboriginal people and suggest that even among younger, more 'Westernised', representatives of this culture, collective values are likely to be strong determinants of behaviour

Competing tasks as an index of intelligence

[Abstract]: Most studies involving competing (or dual) tasks have been concerned with the investigation of models of attention and have stressed the importance of task characteristics in determining competing-task performance. The relatively few studies which have looked at indi¬vidual differences in competing-task performance suggest that measures of this performance could reflect operations which are central to cognitive functioning. This paper examines two key questions which stem from this research: is there a separate ability involved in competing-task performance? Is competing-task performance more indicative of general intellectual functioning? A battery composed of both single and competing tasks was presented to 91 Ss. Two sets of scores, primary and `secondary', were obtained from the competing tasks. The results indicate that `single' and `primary' scores are basically measuring the same thing but that secondary' scores measure what is perhaps a time-sharing factor. There is also some evidence that primary and secondary scores are more indicative of the general factor, as measured by this battery, than their single counterparts