The Impact of Time Efficacy on Air Traffic Controller Situation Awareness and Mental Workload
DOI: 10.1080/10508410903416037
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Summary
This study investigates the impact of time efficacy on the situation awareness (SA) and mental workload of air traffic controller (ATC) trainees. Time efficacy, defined as an individual’s perception of control over time and evaluation of their time management behaviors, is posited as a critical factor in high-pressure environments like ATC, where operators must prioritize tasks and manage concurrent information streams. While previous research linked time management to academic performance, no prior studies examined its effects on the rapid, dynamic multitasking required in air traffic control. The authors hypothesized that individuals with high time efficacy would maintain higher SA, experience lower subjective workload, and demonstrate better task management than those with low time efficacy. The experiment involved 31 male ATC trainees from the Civil Aviation Flight University of China, selected based on scores from the Time Management Disposition Inventory (TMDI). Participants were assigned to high or low time efficacy groups based on the upper and lower 27th percentiles of their scores. Each participant completed two 30-minute simulation scenarios in a custom ATC simulator: one with low traffic density (few aircraft) and one with high traffic density (many aircraft). The simulator required controllers to manage handoffs, monitor for conflicts, and resolve potential collisions using data link communications. Dependent variables included SA (measured via the 3-D Situation Awareness Rating Technique), subjective workload (measured via NASA-TLX and concurrent ATWIT probes), actual taskload, and objective performance metrics such as the number of loss-of-separation incidents and time to loss of separation. Results indicated that traffic density significantly affected all measures, with higher aircraft counts leading to lower SA, higher workload, and more conflicts. Crucially, the high time efficacy group maintained significantly higher SA ratings than the low efficacy group across both traffic conditions. This advantage was driven by lower attentional demand, higher attentional supply, and better situation comprehension. Regarding workload, the high efficacy group reported significantly lower NASA-TLX scores than the low efficacy group. In the high-traffic condition, the difference in concurrent ATWIT workload ratings between groups was also statistically significant, with high-efficacy controllers reporting lower stress. Additionally, high-efficacy participants responded to workload probes significantly faster, indicating lower cognitive load. Although actual taskload and objective performance metrics (conflict counts and resolution timing) showed trends favoring the high-efficacy group, these differences did not reach statistical significance. The findings suggest that time efficacy is a significant predictor of SA and subjective mental workload in ATC tasks. Controllers with high time efficacy appear better equipped to manage attentional resources and maintain situational understanding under pressure. The study implies that time efficacy assessments could be valuable tools for the selection, training, and shift scheduling of air traffic controllers, potentially improving operational safety and efficiency by identifying individuals with superior time management aptitudes.
Provenance
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | Crossref | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| archive | success | semantic_scholar | — | — | 6 | 2026-08-09 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 3 | 2026-08-10 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| enrich | failed | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-nvidia | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-08-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 10 | 2026-08-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-08-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-nvidia on 2026-08-10; verification: verified.
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