Papers by Anna Pongonis Grome
PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2013
for the Behavioral and Social Sciences Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. U.... more for the Behavioral and Social Sciences Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences Department of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff, G1 Authorized and approved for distribution: MICHELLE SAMS, Ph.D. Director Research accomplished under contract for the Department of the Army by
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2020
This paper describes a research and development project with the U.S. Navy to develop a learning ... more This paper describes a research and development project with the U.S. Navy to develop a learning tool that will teach the conceptual, non-intuitive value, of netted force concepts beyond current training capabilities. The Anti-air Warfare Awareness and Readiness Environment (AWARE) is being developed as a serious game that leverages learning science and adaptive learning, the psychology of engagement, and usability principles to create a learning tool that is effective and applicable to a diverse group of users. For technical users (e.g., the warfighter), it will provide an opportunity to understand how individual actions impact fleet level effectiveness. For non-technical users (e.g., engineers), the game will serve as a tool to explore future netted force concepts and inform future force investment discussions. In this paper we describe the methodology to apply learning principles and adaptive learning to gameplay, and an initial prototype.
This report summarizes the survey conducted as part of a Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Hi... more This report summarizes the survey conducted as part of a Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Highways for LIFE (HfL) initiative to collect feedback from key stakeholders as a program close-out activity. As part of the survey, the stakeholders were asked to provide input on how well the HfL program achieved its goals and provided potential ideas for the future. Although the HfL program is now ending, the feedback collected from the survey will be used to finalize the program’s final report. It will also be used to improve and/or initiate future FHWA programs focused on innovation deployment. Additionally, this input will be used to validate or clarify the findings collected as part of the HfL focus groups and interviews conducted in September and October, 2012. The six overarching themes identified in the HfL Focus Group and Interview Report were used to analyze the quantitative survey data as a means of cross-comparing the survey results with those rendered from the two focus grou...
Emerald Publishing Limited eBooks, Oct 24, 2019
Only recently has physical space design become more widely recognized as playing a critical role ... more Only recently has physical space design become more widely recognized as playing a critical role in delivery of care, with an emerging body of literature on the application of human factors approaches to design and evaluation. This chapter describes the use of human factors approaches to develop and conduct an evaluation of a proposed Neonatal Intensive Care Unit redesign in a Midwestern children's hospital. Methods included observations and knowledge elicitation from stakeholders to characterize their goals, challenges, and needs. This characterization is integral to informing the design of user-centered solutions, including physical space design. We also describe an approach to evaluating the proposed design that yielded actionable recommendations specific to hospital-driven design goals.
This research report offers an integrative view of key challenges that military design teams enco... more This research report offers an integrative view of key challenges that military design teams encounter, and describes lessons, strategies, and approaches used by military leaders to optimize the performance of design teams in operational contexts. Topics include assembling design teams, managing intergroup dynamics, fostering cognitive flexibility, integrating non-military SMEs into the team, capturing the team's evolving understanding, and conveying insights to stakeholders. The report presents findings from previous research on teams as well as insights from interviews and a survey with those who have worked in design teams in operational settings.
CRC Press eBooks, Dec 2, 2014
Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making, Nov 17, 2015
The importance of triangulating multiple sources of data in the design of tools, technology, and ... more The importance of triangulating multiple sources of data in the design of tools, technology, and clinical workspaces has not been explicitly addressed in the applied human factors literature. In this paper, we describe an applied human factors case study in which Cognitive Task Analysis was used to triangulate the needs, goals, and design requirements from various stakeholder groups for the design of a Newborn Intensive Care Unit. To facilitate development of common ground on the design goals, in our interviews, we asked questions about (a) stated design goals to elicit the perspectives of meaning across the user groups and (b) schematic renderings of the proposed space. They served as a way to establish a representative definition of each design goal accounting for the perspectives of all user groups. We found that each role brought a perspective and a level of detail based on his/her role goals and lived experience to the design goals. The goals and tradeoffs illuminated by our approach can only be identified when multiple perspectives are collected. Source triangulation should be pursued as part of standard human factors methods to achieve design and evaluation objectives in the context of complex sociotechnical systems.
This report describes a synthesis of findings from ARI's research program on design and strategic... more This report describes a synthesis of findings from ARI's research program on design and strategic thinking. A systematic examination of ten research reports was conducted to identify key insights that emerged across the research efforts. Findings, implications, and recommendations for the Army include: using an alternative framework like "managing complex problems" to communicate the concepts of design and strategic thinking to operational forces; providing Soldiers with practical tools and resources that support managing complex problems; expanding the set of skill-building exercises that allow Soldiers to practice key skills and core activities associated with managing complex problems; assessing skills and activities associated with managing complex problems; taking steps to evolve the organizational culture to be more supportive of the mindsets, behaviors, and skills associated with design and strategic thinking. 15. SUBJECT TERMS Army Design Methodology; strategic thinking; self-development, problem solving 16. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: 17. LIMITATION OF ABSTRACT 18. NUMBER OF PAGES 46 19a. NAME OF RESPONSIBLE PERSON Dr Angela Karrasch a. REPORT
2014 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC), 2014
Sensitivity to patient needs makes clinicians the primary source of adaptive capacity, or resilie... more Sensitivity to patient needs makes clinicians the primary source of adaptive capacity, or resilience, in the intensive care unit (ICU). Work setting complexities and contingencies make cognitive work in this setting particularly challenging. A IT-based system to support individual and team decisions and communication would increase clinicians' capacity to adapt. We report on a 3-year project now underway to develop such a system. During the first year, our research team used Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) methods to reveal characteristics of the work setting, goals, barriers, and individual and team initiatives to overcome barriers. Our data analyses identified requirements for the IT system that were embodied in use cases, as well as in first draft prototypes of the system architecture and user interface. Our team is currently evaluating the interface prototype for face validity and refining details prior to starting programming. Interactive prototypes will be evaluated against criteria identified in field research to ensure validity. The resulting system is expected to improve staff decision making ability and communications with an expected improvement in unit adaptability. Shared decisions based on better information about procedures and resources are expected to improve staff efficiency and decrease missteps, lapses, delays in care, and the occurrence of morbidities including wrong medication/dose, infections, and unanticipated emergencies such as cardiac arrest.
This research report offers an integrative view of key challenges that military design teams enco... more This research report offers an integrative view of key challenges that military design teams encounter, and describes lessons, strategies, and approaches used by military leaders to optimize the performance of design teams in operational contexts. Topics include assembling design teams, managing intergroup dynamics, fostering cognitive flexibility, integrating non-military SMEs into the team, capturing the team's evolving understanding, and conveying insights to stakeholders. The report presents findings from previous research on teams as well as insights from interviews and a survey with those who have worked in design teams in operational settings.
INCOSE International Symposium, 2011
While military command and control (C2) systems are intended to support operator cognitive work, ... more While military command and control (C2) systems are intended to support operator cognitive work, current US Navy system engineering processes only capture behavioral-level tasks. Deployed forces in high threat settings need support for cognitive and macrocognitive work including planning, replanning, sensemaking and situation awareness. We describe a project on behalf of the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command (NECC) to create an approach to system development that reveals and supports cognitive work. Cognitive systems engineering methods, including cognitive task analysis (CTA), have been used to capture operational requirements and translate them into decision and display requirements. Quality critieria for accomplishing this work are presented. The project team has produced initial prototype displays that are suited to two of eleven NECC commands, those with the highest operations tempo and tactical mission requirements.
Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, 2013
Collective honor in Middle Eastern crowds may serve as an important basis for both conflict and c... more Collective honor in Middle Eastern crowds may serve as an important basis for both conflict and conflict resolution between security forces and crowd members. To investigate this issue, we extended a social -cognitive model of crowd behavior to account for the role of honor in social identities and relations, and tested the model in two studies. In Study 1, we collected critical incidents representing crowd experiences in the Middle East. The interview data were coded to include security actions that escalate force and those that generate understanding or exhibit restraint. Study 2 used a scenario-based interview procedure to test the hypothesis that Middle Eastern civilians and Americans with no Middle Eastern cultural experience hold differing beliefs and expectations about crowd reactions to security force actions. The results showed that escalation of force against the crowd led to an increase in the level of conflict more often than not, whereas attempting to understand the crowd or exhibiting restraint tended to decrease conflict. Middle Eastern expectations were largely congruent with these findings, whereas American beliefs diverged. The results have implications regarding the cultural and cognitive determinants of crowd behavior, and for the management of crowds by regional governments and in international peacekeeping situations.
... agrome@ara.com brooke.schaab@jfcom.mil Jim Ong David Spangler ... Partners in these efforts i... more ... agrome@ara.com brooke.schaab@jfcom.mil Jim Ong David Spangler ... Partners in these efforts include Spain, Sweden, and several African nations. Jim Ong leads the development of advanced training and decision support systems and authoring tools at Stottler Henke. ...
Annals of Emergency Medicine, 2013
The objectives of this study are to elicit and document descriptions of emergency physician exper... more The objectives of this study are to elicit and document descriptions of emergency physician expertise, to characterize cognitive differences between novice and expert physicians, and to identify areas in which novices' skill and knowledge gaps are most pronounced. The nature of the differences between novices and experts needs to be explored to develop effective instructional modalities that accelerate the learning curve of inexperienced physicians who work in high-complexity environments. We interviewed novice emergency physicians (first-year residents) and attending physicians with significant expertise, working in an academic Level I trauma center in Southern California. With cognitive task analysis, we used task diagrams to capture nonroutine critical incidents that required the use of complex cognitive skills. Timelines were constructed to develop a detailed understanding of challenging incidents and the decisions involved as the incident unfolded, followed by progressive deepening to tease out situation-specific cues, knowledge, and information that experts and novices used. A thematic analysis of the interview transcripts was conducted to identify key categories. Using classification techniques for data reduction, we identified a smaller set of key themes, which composed the core findings of the study. Five interns and 6 attending physicians participated in the interviews. Novice physicians reported having difficulties representing the patient's story to attending physicians and other health care providers. Overrelying on objective data, novice physicians use linear thinking to move to diagnosis quickly and are likely to discount and explain away data that do not "fit" the frame. Experienced physicians draw on expertise to recognize cues and patterns while leaving room for altering or even changing their initial diagnosis. Whereas experts maintain high levels of spatial, temporal, and organizational systems awareness when overseeing treatment modalities of multiple patients, novices have difficulty seeing and maintaining the "big picture." Novice physicians use sense-making styles that differ from those of experts. Training novices to respond to the high cognitive demand of complex environments early in their careers requires instructional modalities that not only increase their knowledge base but also accelerate the integration of knowledge and practice. Simulation and custom-designed avatar-mediated virtual worlds are a promising new technology that may facilitate such training. Future research should expand on the results of this study through the use of larger sample sizes and interviews conducted at multiple sites to increase generalizability.
With the March 2010 publication of FM 5-0, The Operations Process, the U.S. Army formally introdu... more With the March 2010 publication of FM 5-0, The Operations Process, the U.S. Army formally introduced Design into its doctrine (Headquarters; Department of the Army, 2010). Design is defined in FM 5-0 as "a methodology for applying critical and creative thinking to understand, visualize, and describe complex, illstructured problems and develop approaches to solve them" (p. 3-1). Though many people contend that successful commanders have always performed Design, the codification of Design in doctrine represents a significant organizational change for the Army. Organizational change efforts are often met with resistance, and the intended benefits of the change may go unrealized. The goal of this research effort was to identify and document significant organizational barriers to integrating Design into Army operations, and develop recommendations for mitigating those barriers. The research team conducted a literature review and in-depth interviews with subject-matter experts to identify obstacles to adoption of Design. A number of barriers have the potential to create significant impediments to the integration of Design, including: terminology and language barriers, conceptual barriers, organizational culture barriers, command-level barriers, and applications barriers. A series of recommendations are made for mitigating the identified challenges and facilitating the integration of Design into Army operations. 15. SUBJECT TERMS design, Army Design Methodology, organizational barriers, change management, planning, conceptual planning, operations process, discourse, critical thinking, systems thinking, complex and ill-structured problems SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF 19.
This research product provides a thorough examination of the question: "How can the Army assess, ... more This research product provides a thorough examination of the question: "How can the Army assess, develop, and retain strategic thinkers?" Expert input from within and outside the military provide a variety of perspectives that highlight areas of convergence and divergence, as well as, exemplar techniques, processes and insights that inform and change the conceptualization and practice of strategic thinking in the military. This compendium does not provide the answer to all of the Army's strategic thinking challenges, but it does provide many possible avenues to explore with the goal of enhancing the Army's strategic thinking capabilities.
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Papers by Anna Pongonis Grome