ABSTRACT
The term, situation awareness (SA), has emerged as a psychological concept similar to such terms as intelligence, vigilance, attention, fatigue, stress, compatibility, or workload. Most definitions of SA focus on the awareness part and neglect the definition of a situation. SA measurement methods may be broken down as follows: direct system performance measures, direct experimental measures, verbal protocols, and subjective measures. Mission-goal awareness refers to the need to keep current with respect to the phase of the mission and the currently active goals that are to be satisfied. The ideal SA reflects the analyst's front-end analysis to identify information and knowledge requirements; requirements that are formulated with SA in mind. The difference between achievable ideal and actual SA creates the space for evaluating individual differences in the ability to achieve SA and for developing training opportunities. The subject of measurement encompasses more than just the selection of performance measures.
