ABSTRACT
Introduction Matching human capabilities with job requirements is a fundamental Human Factors problem. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was confronted with this issue in 1981 on an unprecedented scale when more than 11,000 of about 15,000 air traffic control specialists went on strike and were summarily fired when they failed to return to work. The FAA was faced with an immense organizational challenge – rebuilding its core, technical, and highly trained air traffic control specialist (ATCS) workforce. From late 1981 through mid 1992, the FAA rebuilt this critical workforce through application of Human Factors research findings in a successful, large-scale testing, screening, and training program. The abilities of over 400,000 applicants were assessed using a test battery based on Human Factors research in the preceding decade. Approximately 10 per cent of the top-scoring applicants were hired and underwent a second-stage screening at the FAA Academy between 1981 and 1992. Just over half (56 per cent) of those new controllers successfully completed the Academy screening program and were placed into field training. Between 60 and 90 per cent of Academy graduates went on to successfully complete field training and become Certified Professional Controllers. In this chapter, the Human Factors research roots of the 1981-1992 ATCS selection test battery will be described. The reliability, validity, fairness, and utility of the battery will be examined. The chapter closes with a discussion of workforce demographic trends that will require the FAA to yet again consider, on a large scale, the fundamental problem of air traffic control specialist selection. Human Factors Roots The US aviation system expanded in the late 1960s, placing a heavy burden on the Federal Aviation Administration and its employees. The most visible and public employees were the air traffic control specialists. In reaction to their job burdens, the controllers engaged in a series of public actions to draw attention to their
complaints of old equipment, staff shortages, and job stress. In reaction, the Department of Transportation appointed a blue-ribbon committee to study the career of the air traffic controller. The effectiveness of the 1964 civil service battery was questioned in the final report of the Air Traffic Controller Career Committee (Corson, Berhard, Catterson, Fleming, Lewis, Mitchell, and Ruttenberg, 1970). Not only were there problems with aptitude testing, the committee also concluded that existing measures of controller for performance, against which to assess the validity and utility of the selection processes, were weak and uninformative. The committee also found, as had previous investigators, that the attrition rate in training was as great as 50 per cent in some years. Based on the committee recommendations, the FAA entered into a research contract to ‘…analyze the existing procedures for selection in depth, to note important gaps which mitigate against improved selection and high quality of performance, to locate (within the time constraints of one year) assessment techniques to fill those gaps, and to conduct a field validation study to establish their validity’ (Education and Public Affairs EPA Inc., 1970).
