Skill-based behaviour

Skill-based behaviour in which people carry out routines on automatic pilot with built-in checking loops. 

Skill-based behaviour At this level, behaviour is automated. Incoming information leads directly to an automatic response without any conscious thought. Skill-based behaviour is established through training and experience. 

Skill-based behaviours depend mostly on the operator s practice in performing the task. In short the operator can perform the task without ambiguity. A simplistic view is that skill-based errors are slips or hrpses. These errors tend to be related to highly routine activities in familiar circumstances omissions, repetitions, reversals, interference errors and double-capture slips. An example is incorrect use of foot pedal controls of fork-lift trucks. Some fork-lift trucks... 

There are, arguably, two reasons why skill-based assessments are hidden or ignored in tourist behaviour research. One view is that much tourist behaviour is gaze oriented, a simple observing of the visited scenes and communities and so participants are not differentiated by the concept of skill. Similarly Rojek and Urry (1997a) observe that sometimes tourists take photos simply because, confronted with remarkable vistas and sights, they simply do not know what else to do. 

The issue of the level of skills can also be seen as partly embedded in a differently labelled tradition of research already reported in Chapter 2. Attention has been directed to the influence of specialisation or levels of previous experience in understanding tourist behaviour (Cole Scott, 2000 McFarlane, 1994 Martin, 1997). It is certainly possible to see that more experienced travellers and those who specialise in activities are more likely to have a higher skill base. 

Skill-based (S-B) errors are not easily prevented because of the highly automatic (or unconscious) open-loop character of this level of behaviour either you learn to live with them, or you change the task environment in which they occur, when human error seems to have been built in (quite predictably) in the design stage. Especially ergonomics may contribute in... 

Rule based performance - behaviours which require more mental effort and planning because we are operating in less famiUar territory or where a skill-based approach isn t going to work. 

Mistakes are errors of systematic decision making and occur when we initiate the wrong action but believing it to be correct - essentially this is the failure of planning [9]. We make mistakes when we undertake tasks which are less familiar and require more cognitive effort than for skill-based activities. Often the behaviour is a result of us being overburdened with matters competing for our attention. 

A scope virtually restricted to skill and rule-based behaviour, and hence a limited capacity for evaluating cognitive behaviour. 

The attractiveness of systems and engineering approaches in reducing safety incidents has unfortunately not eUminated individual behaviour as the most frequently reported cause. An analysis by Endsley (1999), that most human error incidents resulted from a loss of situational awareness (SA) rather than judgement or skill based decisions, emphasized the importance of attention recovery mechanisms for safety critical roles. Marty papers have been published dealing with attention recovery and fatigue countermeasures to date, however, none have been found that include a mechanism to enable instantaneous and cued recovery at the moment of demand. This chapter formalizes a practice based approach to recovery of SA delivered in over 20 years of counselling and coaching performance with a diversity of clients. 

A further relationship exists between these error Qpes and Rasmussen s [3] classic model of skill, rule and knowledge-based behaviour. Slips and l >ses tend to occur at the skill-based level, whereas mistakes occur at the rule-based and knowledge-based levels. Rule-based mistakes are primarily due to mis lied expertise, where some pre-established plan or problem solution is lied inappropriately. Knowl ge-based mistakes generally occur due to a lack of e q)ertise, where no off-the-shelf solution exists and an individual is forced to work out a plan of action fiom first principles. 

Reason goes further and highlights the likely feilure modes at each level of behaviour. For exanq>le skill-based enors occur due to control-mode fiulures of both inattention and over-attention. Rule-based errors can arise fiom the misapplication of rules or the q>plication of incorrect rules. Knowledge-based errors can arise due to selectivity, biased reviewing and a number of other fiictors. 

A relatively simple model has been developed by Rasmussen to quantify human error rates based on the level of training (Rasmussen (1979, 1981)). This model divides the behaviour into three basic categories skill-based, rule-based, and knowledge-based behaviours. 

Determine operator behaviour - For each of the tasks identified in Step 2, determine the required operator s behaviours. Three types of behaviours are considered namely, skill-based, rule-based or knowledge-based behaviour. These behaviours are discussed in Sections 9.3. 

As was discussed in Chapter 2 Rasmussen has provided the basic model of human error based on three levels of behaviour skill-, rule- and knowledge-based (S-B, R-B, K-B). This SRK model has been operationalised to describe operator errors in process control tasks by combining it with characteristic task elements, which as a whole cover the entire spectrum of operator subtasks. 

---