A reduced processing approach to decision support for improving the decisions of less-experienced incident commanders

Abstract

This thesis investigated the use of decision support systems as a mechanism to both safeguard a system and facilitate the acquisition of decision skills among less experienced practitioners in the context of fireground incident command. Theoretically, the use of decision support systems has the capacity to reduce the demands on working memory resources, enabling faster and more accurate decisions. Three different decision support system interfaces were designed, each of which differed in the cognitive demands associated with formulating a decision. The interfaces ranged from the full processing Analytical interface, the moderate Quasianalytical interface, to the least cognitively demanding Intuitive interface. Three studies were conducted that were broadly designed to: (1) identify and populate the decision support system interfaces with the features that expert Incident Commanders use to make decisions; (2) determine whether an interface that reduces the cognitive processing demands would improve the decision-making performance of less-experienced Incident Commanders; and (3) investigate whether an interface that emphasises the most critical features, and the provision of training, could improve the decision accuracy of inexperienced personnel with a reduced processing interface. Overall, the results indicated that the use of the reduced processing interfaces enabled less-experienced Incident Commanders to engage decision strategies that were more equivalent to experienced Incident Commanders. Specifically, when using the reduced processing interfaces, the experienced and less-experienced Incident Commanders were equivalent in the amount of information accessed, the number of information re-acquisitions that occurred, and the pattern of information acquisition. However, this did not translate to an improvement in decision accuracy unless information was pre-selected and where feedback was provided as part of a training phase. It was concluded that, although reduced processing interfaces provide the potential to improve the decision-making performance of less-experienced personnel, the full benefit of these interfaces may not be realised without emphasising the most critical information, whether through training or through system design. These results have theoretical and applied implications for the design and development of decision support systems in fire-fighting and across other high-consequence domains.

Date of Award	2010
Original language	English