Getting the Feeling : “Human Error” in an educational ship-handling simulator

Abstract: In high-risk environments of seafaring, simulators constitute a widely used tool in preparing nauticalstudents for the challenges to be met in real-life working situations. While the technical developmentof ship bridge simulators continues at a breathtaking pace, little is known on how developments fulfiltheir intended safety critical purpose during actual simulator training exercises.In order to investigate this, a mixed-methods quasi-experimental field study (N =6) was conductedaiming at discerning the systemic causes behind committed human errors and to what extent thesecauses can be related to the technical layout of the simulator in general and a decision supportingdisplay in particular. The nautical students’ performance in terms of committed errors was analysedwhen the decision supporting display was either inactive or active during two different exercisebatches. Drawing upon eye tracking evaluation, interviews and simulator video recordings, systemiccauses leading to human errors were identified. Results indicate that all errors occur under the samekind of (stressful) interaction. Based on this design requirements aiming at promoting resilient crewbehaviour were proposed