Facilitation in Aviation Training and Operations (Studies in Aviation Psychology and Human Factors) Review

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(More customer reviews)This practical book provides a comprehensive coverage of facilitation and adult learning techniques and how they can assist with training, analysis and de-briefing in airline operations. The authors trace the history of the facilitation concept from its original therapeutic applications, through its adoption by the quality management movement, to its eventual introduction into airline operations with rise of line oriented flight training. There is still a place for traditional instruction when technical information must be transferred, but as the authors note "few things can have more impact on the efficiency and safety of flight operations than enabling crews to analyze and improve their own performance". Unfortunately, when it comes to debriefing crew performance, airline training personnel do not always have the skills needed to be effective facilitators. This book will be a useful reference for all who are involved in facilitation, whether as trainers or line pilots.
The authors bring hard won experience to the topic. As well as providing practical tips and techniques for crew debriefings, they warn of the traps and pitfalls awaiting the unwary facilitator. I could easily imagine the nameless pilots whose post-sim debriefs were derailed as one person did all the talking, or where the discussion degenerated into technical nitpicking. In the final chapter, Captain Mimi Tompkins provides a useful introduction to critical incident stress debriefing.
The book is focused on flight operations, but the authors note that facilitation concepts have value throughout aviation organizations, and in applications outside aviation as well. Unfortunately, the authors have largely limited their scope to airline flight operations, although brief mention is made of the value of debriefs in medicine, law enforcement and education. The practical concepts they cover would be of great value for those in maintenance, air traffic control and other sectors of aviation. Perhaps they will consider a follow-up book on these topics.

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Facilitation, as the term is used in this work, refers to processes by which one member of a group operates to help the group analyze issues, learn from experience, and work as a team to draw conclusions. This volume seeks to show the innovative ways facilitation is being used in aviation and to provide an account of methods in facilitation that will enable aviation professionals to apply these methods in their work. The first chapter outlines the basic concepts of facilitation and traces its origins. It compares the advantages and disadvantages of facilitation with traditional methods of instruction, discusses the circumstances in which each is best used, and recommends an approach to training facilitators. The second chapter describes a research study of facilitation in Line Oriented Flight Training (LOFT) debriefings, and the third chapter gives guidance for using facilitation techniques in LOFT debriefings.Chapter Four identifies other applications of facilitation in aviation training, and the next three chapters, respectively, discuss debriefing of normal line operations, critical line incidents in which crews have got into some sort of trouble, and traumatic line incidents and accidents.

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