Distributed Situation Awareness in Australian Rules Football Officiating
Timothy J. Neville · 2020
Situation awareness is an important HFE concept which considers how individuals, teams, organisations, and systems understand what is going on in their dynamic task environment. Whilst situation awareness has been examined in sport, there has been little attention given to a. situation awareness in sports officials, and b. the impacts of new technologies on situation awareness. This chapter describes a case study in which the distributed situation awareness model and associated Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork method were applied to assess how the introduction of radio communications technology impacts the task, teamwork and situation awareness of Australian Rules Football officiating teams. The findings demonstrate that the radio communications technology enabled greater opportunities for communication, provided increased access to information, and facilitated transactions in situation awareness between officials which supported teamwork and coordination. It is concluded that radio communication has a positive effect on the field umpires situation awareness.