USING SIMULATION MODELING METHODS TO STUDY TEAMS DOING TASKWORK

摘要

Traditional human factors approaches to team research are inherently limited by the time and resourcesrequired to conduct laboratory and field studies. Teams can be described as systems, which can be brokendown into components, behaviors, and relationships. Simulation modeling techniques have been successfulin studying dynamic and emergent aspects of systems, including human groups, and are good candidatesfor studying team process dynamics. An example model described in this article acts as a feasibility test forincorporating aspects of teamwork and taskwork into computational models. Aspects of systemsengineering are presented, and methods for operationalizing components are discussed. Key modelingtopics highlighted include functionality and convergence. By integrating simulation methods into humanfactors subject areas, researchers may be able to study more diverse sets of people, apply a wide array ofexperimental treatments, and observe emergent behaviors of humans with less time and resources.