Goal-oriented decision-making

Goal-oriented training can change the balance between reflective and reflexive processes.

Emergency responders have all been there — they rush to get to an incident, very quickly size it up, and take action. But award-winning research looks at incident managers that include a third step, actually formulating a plan of action. It has been argued that the development of explicit plans enables shared situational awareness and goals to support a common operating picture.

An article written by Dr. Sabrina Cohen-Hatton and R.C. Honey, Goal-Oriented Training Affects Decision-Making Processes in Virtual and Simulated Fire and Rescue Environments, received the Best Paper of the Year Award from the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied in 2016.

The research evaluated 48 incident commanders from 11 Fire and Rescue Services in the United Kingdom who had just received one-hour of training on incident management. They were divided into two groups, one with standard training and the other that included information about decision-making:

For Group Decision, slides were included that highlighted the use decision controls, which involved using a rapid mental check list of questions at key decision points: Why am I doing this (i.e., what are my goals)? What do I expect to happen (i.e., what are the anticipated consequences)? and Are the benefits worth the risks? When participants given goal-oriented training watched the footage, and were asked what actions they would take next, they were directed to answer with reference to the decision controls.

After the brief training the firefighters participated in immersive virtual reality (VR) simulations of a house fire, a traffic collision, and a “skip fire that spreads to an adjoining shop”.

The results showed that goal-oriented training affects the decision-making process in experienced incident commanders across a variety of simulated environments
ranging from immersive VR through to live burns. There is evidence that the training can change the balance between reflective and reflexive processes which could have the potential to increase the effectiveness of communication between members of firefighting crews and to improve
safety.

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Author: Bill Gabbert

After working full time in wildland fire for 33 years, he continues to learn, and strives to be a Student of Fire.