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A Systems Approach to Human Factors and Expert Decision-Making Within Canadian Avalanche Phenomena
Adams, Laura
2005-04
Royal Roads University
This action research project led a naturalistic decision-making inquiry into the influence of human factors in Canadian avalanche experts' decision-making. Using cognitive task analysis and the critical decision method, the author found that avalanche-related judgments and decisions occurred within a dynamic context influenced by individual, team, client, organizational, and socio-political human factors. Avalanche experts used a hierarchy of judgment and decision complexity that integrated rule-based, analytic, intuitive, and systems thinking modes of cognitive function. They applied strategies of pattern recognition, mental stimulation, critical thinking, and metacognition within a highly developed systems approach to judgment and decision making. The author offers six evidence-based recommendations designed to enhance avalanche judgment and decision-making capacities, and to counter the influence of negative human factors in the decision process.
thesis
electronic
110 MB
QC 929 A8 A33 2005
Local Collection
Avalanches ; Decision making