ABSTRACT
Ergonomics research designed to understand human performance in complex systems often requires developing suitable measures of job performance. In complex systems, such as nuclear power plant control rooms, the challenge is to measure the full domain of job performance requirements. When constructing performance assessment instruments, it is important to demonstrate that they yield reliable and valid performance information. The purpose of this paper is to describe an approach used to assess operator performance in simulated abnormal plant operations. Three different performance assessment instruments were designed to measure the full range of operations performance requirements. The primary goal in constructing these performance assessment instruments was to design measures that assess performance at the functional level, assess the generic performance requirements, and to assess performance requirements specific to a particular abnormal condition. The three instruments designed for this study were also subject to a reliability analyses, and performance data were interpreted by examining the correlations between the different types of performance assessment instruments.
