Learning in the air traffic control tower: Stretching co-presence through interdependent sentience

Abstract

This paper examines the learning and performance of the air traffic control (ATC) work domain. This domain was chosen because it embodies features that represent future work for many other industries (e.g., information service provision mediated by information technologies; a high reliance on communication skills and collaborative work; increasing complexity and intensity of the work activity), within an organisational context undergoing considerable change. In ATC work learning occurs formally as part of accredited training and informally, as part of everyday practice. In this way learning and experience of ATC work shapes – and is shaped by – the way work is organised, which includes the divisions of labour and technological artefacts. ATC work is experienced temporally, complexly, through affect and socially. Controllers learn to use a variety of socio-material resources which include embodiment and artefacts to undertake the work. In so doing the article demonstrates the ways in which learning and performance is not just a cognitive undertaking, but one that draws on embodiment to achieve what here is called “interdependent sentience”. This involves using all their senses to gain an awareness of problems as they emerge to collectively accomplish a seamless air traffic flow in a complex interdependent socio-technical system.

Keywords:

• Air traffic control
• complexity
• workplace learning
• literacy
• distributed coordination
• socio-technical systems

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christine Owen

Christine Owen is an organisational behaviour and learning researcher with over 30 years’ experience in investigating decision-making, teamwork, coordination organisational culture and change in safety critical environments. She has worked in the domains of aviation, emergency medicine, public safety and fire and emergency services. Christine specialises in translating research into evidence-informed capability development and improving organisational performance.