| The field of petrochemical refining could prevent incidents and improve processes through the application of measures of Situation Awareness (SA). Currently there are multiple measures of SA, with the Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT) and the Situation Present Assessment Method (SPAM) being the most promising based on a number of theoretical and objective assessments. As researchers seek to apply measures of SA to the field of petrochemical refining, they will need more information on the applicability of these measures. To this end, this research sought to examine specific objective qualities of SAGAT and SPAM when used to assess petrochemical plant operator SA in a medium fidelity simulator. Hydrocracking plant operators participated in a simulation of a loss of hydrogen to their simulated plant, where SA was assessed in addition to a set of performance variables, and workload. Results of this investigation showed SAGAT Accuracies to be predictive of certain performance variables. Although SPAM and SAGAT were not sensitive to differences in task workload, neither measure was significantly intrusive on primary task performance suggesting that these metrics can be used in future experiments in petrochemical refining. |
