THE RELEVANCE OF METACOGNITION IN AN AIR TRAFFIC SELECTION AND TRAINING (ATSAT) SUBTEST

INTRODUCTION: The ability to scan for relevant information is an important attribute for selection into the air traffic controller (ATC) workforce. However, less well known is the importance of a controller's comprehension of the quality of his or her scanning abilit) Research in metacognition (i.e., thinking about thinking) suggests that people who are better at monitoring their knowledge relative to a desired goal are also better at controlling the amount of learning necessary to bridge their knowledge gap (Nelson and Narens, 1990). From an air traffic control perspective, we would expect that controllers who perform well on a scanning test will make better pre-and postdictions about their performance than those who perform more poorly.