1. Critical Thinking An Introduction to Situation Awareness and Decision Making
Hint: run the presentation graphic, then review the speakers notes.
References
FAA AC60-22 Aeronautical Decision Making
UK CAA CAP737 Crew Resource Management (CRM) Training
UK CAA CAP719 Fundamental HF Concepts (ICAO Digest No 1)
ICAO Human Factors Training Manual
ESSAI - Enhancing Safety through Situation Awareness Integration in training; European research project.
Australian CASA ‘Flight Safety Australia’, Situation Awareness November 1998
Australian CASA ‘Flight Safety Australia’, Mental Is Everything Mar Apr 2001
New Zealand CAA ‘Vector’, Airmanship Situation Awareness Jan Feb 2003
Guidelines For Situation Awareness Training Carolyn Prince, Ph.D.
Situational Awareness, Key Component of Safe Flight Constance Bovier CRM_DEVEL Forum
“Managing situation awareness on the flight deck or the next best thing to a crystal ball’ Sheryl L. Chappell - NASA
‘Defining Critical Thinking’, Michael Scriven & Richard Paul
Evaluating critical thinking skills
‘Developing thinking skills: critical thinking at the army management staff college’,   Roy Eichhorn, ‘Habits of the mind’ Susan Alvarado, MA
‘Critical Thinking in Everyday Life’
“The Memory Key” Dr Fiona McPherson
‘Beyond Feelings’ Vincent Rugirio
Graphic credit: Airbus
Thinking about thinking
This presentation provides an overview of how to improve situation awareness. It is intended to enhance the reader's understanding, but it shall not supersede the applicable regulations or airline's operational documentation; should there be any discrepancy appear between this presentation and the airline’s AFM / (M)MEL / FCOM / QRH / FCTM, the latter shall prevail at all times.

2. Introduction
This self-study guide provides advice on how to improve your thinking and introduces the associated aspects of situation awareness and decision making. These activities are essential processes in threat and error management, which must be used in daily operations. Thinking is the core skill in these activities; critical thinking involves controlling your thinking:- thinking about the quality of your thinking.
The guide is in five sections:
Threat and Error Management
Situation Awareness
Decision Making
Critical Thinking
Situation Awareness and Decision Making
Everyone thinks; it is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed or down-right prejudiced. Yet the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of our thought. Poor thinking is costly, both in money and in quality of life. Excellence in thought, however, must be systematically and continuously cultivated.
Probable cause in 80% of accidents, NTSB:-
Unprofessional attitudes 47%
Pilot technique / Decision making 26%
Visual perception – situation misjudgement 19%
UK CAA CAP 681 Global Fatal Accident Review
The most frequently identified causal factors in the 589 fatal accidents were:
1) Lack of positional awareness in air 244 (41.4%)
2) Omission of action / inappropriate action 216 (36.7%)
3) Flight handling 177 (30.1%)
4) Poor professional judgement / airmanship 134 (22.8%)
5) Slow and/or low on approach 113 (19.2%)
6) Failure in Crew Resource Management (CRM) 101 (17.1%)
7) Press-on-itis 97 (16.5%)
8) Deliberate non-adherence to procedures 72 (12.2%)
9) Design shortcomings 67 (11.4%)
10) Post crash fire 63 (10.7%)
Note: The factors are not mutually exclusive as each accident generally involves more than one factor.
It is interesting to note that the 8 most frequently identified causal factors (including primary) belonged to the Crew group.
Speakers notes provide additional information, they can be selected by clicking the right mouse button in Slideshow View, select Screen, select Speakers notes.
This presentation can be printed in the notes format to provide a personal reference document.

3. Threat and Error Management
Threat and Error Management (TEM) is a major safety process in aviation.
TEM consists of detecting, avoiding or trapping threats and errors that challenge the safety of flight operations. Where threats and errors are not contained the resulting conditions must be managed and their adverse effects reduced.
All flight and ground operations
Threats
Errors
Undesired States
Detect
Avoid / Trap
Mitigate
Situation Awareness
Resist
Resolve
Recover
“Threat Management is managing your future.” - The opportunity to manage your future
“Error Management is managing your past” - The necessity to manage your past.
Capt Don Gunther Continental Airlines
Principles of TEM
1. To create awareness and understanding of the risks and hazards.
2. To detect and warn of the presence of non-normal conditions or imminent dangers.
3. To protect people and the environment from injury and damage.
4. To recover from non-normal conditions and to restore the system to a safe state.
5. To contain the results of non-normal conditions or hazards.
6. To enable the potential victims to escape non-normal conditions or hazards.
Threat and error management – data from LOSA (Line Operations Safety Assessment)
72% of flights had at least one external threat; average two per flight
Terrain, weather, malfunction, ATC
64% of flights had at least one error; average two per flight
Miss settings, automation, monitoring
53% of errors had no pilot response
Situation awareness and Decision Making
Decision Making
Plane
Path
People
Fly the aircraft, Navigate, Communicate, Manage

4. Situation Awareness
Situation Awareness is having an accurate understanding of your surroundings, where you are, what happened, what is happening, what is changing, why, and what could happen.
Good situation awareness requires:
Gathering data (sensing, perception), seeking cues in the environment
Assembling information to give understanding (comprehension)
and then thinking ahead (projection)
Thinking about situation awareness involves:
directing your attention to seek data; scanning a range of sources
evaluating information without bias, for accuracy and relevance
understanding, using your knowledge and previous experiences
comparing and checking, visualising future events - ‘what if’
planning ahead, considering possible outcomes
Situational Awareness is the accurate perception and understanding of all the factors and conditions within the four fundamental risk elements (Pilot, Aircraft, Environment, Operation) that affect safety before, during, and after the flight. (FAA AC 60-22)
There are increasing levels of situation awareness:
First we have to see something
Second we need to gain an understanding,
then use what we have seen and understood by thinking ahead
Think about what you will be looking for; what is important at each stage of flight:
Focus on a broad region -- keep the big picture
Focus on a narrow region -- pay attention to detail
Focus on the right information -- don't get sidetracked or distracted
Manage your attention
Critical thinking involves how you use the knowledge that you have gained.
“The feel of a situation is all important. This feel is based on experience and also on perception. You can predict how a friend will behave because you know your friend. When you are with your friend, you slip into the appropriate behavior”. (E de Bono)
People
Path
Plane
Future
Now
Situation
SCAN
EVALUATE
ANTICIPATE
CONSIDER
Planning
Ahead
Gathering data
Understanding

5. Decision Making
Decision making is about assessment and choosing a course of action
Decision making requires an understanding of the situation and controlled thinking
The situation determines the urgency of the decision, the risks, and actions
Controlled thinking:
Reduces risk
Moderates behaviour
Manages time constraints
Uses knowledge; seeks options
Judges relevance and the quality of the choice
Prepares for action, evaluates the outcome of planned action
T H I N K
O O D A
Observe
Orient
Deduce
Act
D E C I D E
Detect a change
Estimate significance
Choose a safe outcome
Identify possible actions
Do take action
Evaluate the result
GRADE
Gather Information
Review Information
Analyse Alternatives
Decide
Evaluate Outcome of Action
5 D
Detect
Determine
Decide Do
Discipline
Decision Making is a systematic approach to the mental process used by aircraft pilots to consistently determine the best course of action in response to a given set of circumstances.
(AC60-22 Aeronautical Decision Making)
Decision-making is a process that involves assessment of the situation and then choosing a course of action (controlled thinking).
Situation Assessment involves defining the problem and assessing the levels of risk associated with the situation and the amount of time available for solving the problem
Once the problem is defined, a course of action must be chosen. The course of action is selected from the options applicable to the situation.
Expert decision making involves recognising a situation, comparing patterns of scenarios and solutions from memory. Memory involves acquiring knowledge, learning from previous situations and other people, relating this information to the current and other situations, and remembering these aspects in a suitable format for recall. This thinking process is strengthened with repeated briefings (strengthens memory) and critical debriefing – what was good, not so good, what was interesting, what was learnt and has to be remembered.
What we write or what we say reflects our thinking. Our behaviour and reactions in most situations is governed by our thinking, thus our behaviour, actions, situation assessment, and decision making can be adversely affected by previous thoughts, text, or statements.
"Routine" flight operations are under-emphasized. Yet, routine flight operations claim many more lives than abnormal or emergency operations:
“Our actions are always a little further along than is our understanding of those actions, which means that we can intensify crises literally before we know what we are doing.
Unwitting escalation of crises is especially likely when technologies are complex, highly interactive, non-routine and poorly understood. The very action which enables people to gain some understanding of these complex technologies can also cause those technologies to escalate and kill” (Weick, 1988, p. 308).
Expertise involves knowing how to decide, grade, and think – how to use all of the elements

6. Critical Thinking
Critical thinking provides the mental control and discipline required for situation assessment and decision making. It involves several skills; these can be learnt, practiced, and improved.
Control your mind by:
Seeking and understanding information, facts, and data
Effective planning, briefing, and communication
Increasing knowledge; gaining experience
Learning within a situation (context)
Maintain discipline by:
Being aware of how you think; hazardous attitudes
Evaluating your actions; having self regulation
Being aware of all available resources
Being sensitive to feedback
Critical Thinking is the skill of thinking about your thinking
Critical thinking is that mode of thinking - about any subject, content, or problem - in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them.
Hazardous attitudes
Anti-Authority. This is the thought patterns found in people who resent the control of their actions by any outside authority. The general thought is, ‘do not tell me! No one can tell me what to do.”
Impulsivity. This is the thought pattern found in people who when facing a moment of decision, feel that they must do something, anything, and do it quickly. This thought is characterized in the student manual as, ‘do something - quickly!”
Invulnerability. This is the thought pattern of people who feel that nothing disastrous could happen to them, personally, The thought is characterized in the student manual by the statement, “It won’t happen to me!”
Macho. This is the thought pattern of people who are always trying to prove that they are better than others; they prove themselves by taking risks and try to impress others by acting dangerously. The thought is characterized in the student manual by the statement, “I can do it”
Out of Control. People who have this thought pattern feel that they can do very little, if anything, to control what happens. When things go well, it is attributed to good luck. When things go badly, it is attributed to bad luck, or it is generally the fault of someone else. This thought is characterized in the student manual by the question, “What’s the use?”
Critical Thinking is the “Quality control of the mind."
Critical thinking is the thinking that we must do ‘inside of the box’ (in the head), before ‘thinking outside of the box’
“Are we in charge of our thinking, or is our thinking in charge of us?“
Thinking inside the ‘box’ before you think outside of the box
“Are you in charge of your thinking, or is your thinking in charge of you?“

7. Critical Thinking - Self awareness
Self awareness - self questioning, self monitoring
Am I biased in my thinking
Have I made a plan for what I want to do
Are my ideas or knowledge on this issue correct
Am I aware of my thinking; what am I trying to do
Am I using all of the resources for what I want to do
Am I evaluating my thinking; what I would do differently next time
Am I aware of how well I am doing; do I need to change my actions or intentions
Monitoring is checking or testing the accuracy of a situation on a regular
basis. It is keeping a close watch over parameters
and supervising the outcome of planned action.
It is checking for threats and errors in our thinking
Humans are inaccurate at estimating probabilities, and are particularly poor at revising probabilities based on new information. Decision aids can be used to help improve this fault in decision making.
Training should start with ‘de-biasing’, the removal of bad habits or false belief; remember that “first learned, best remembered’ items from basic training might not apply to all aspects of commercial operations.
The key training issues are:
Five hazardous attitudes, but there is no explanation of how to control them.
Self evaluation, self monitoring – ‘how goes it’.
Time management; staying in control of the situation, time, thoughts, and actions.
Memory recall; also related to how information is learnt and ‘memorized – a reminder or trigger cues for recall.
Metagognitive skills; see “thinking about thinking”.
Training in context; chose a realistic situation.
Situation awareness and mental simulation – visualization,
… pattern recognition, development of mental models.
… pay attention to ambiguous, unexpected, or abnormal cues.
Risk assessment and resource management; mental resources and workload.
Thinking Skills:
Interpretation – categorization, decoding, clarifying meaning
Analysis – examining ideas, identifying arguments, analyzing arguments
Evaluation – assessing claims, assessing arguments, self examination, self correction
Inference – querying claims, conjecturing alternatives, drawing conclusions
Explanation – stating results, justifying procedures, presenting arguments
Checking Purpose / objective
Ensure that the end objective is understood, what are we going to achieve
Seeking Information / facts / data
Relevant evidence should be sought, reliable and true, reported clearly. All data should be considered, data to address the purpose, to support and refute the evidence
Reasoning
Avoiding taking things for granted, checking the purpose is valid, the problem is solvable, the resources are available. Assumptions should be clearly stated and must be justified
Interpretation Using proven data to clarify the proposed solution or to justify your position, checking for contradictions. Being consistent, deep thinking, and clear
Points of view
Understanding your view, how was it developed, background knowledge, experience, does it make sense. Acknowledging that similar and opposing points of view exist. Understanding and discussing opposing points of view
Conclusions / implications / consequences
Reasoning should lead somewhere! What are the consequences or implications of our reasoning?
What will happen if we take the course of action?
Are the implications, conclusions, and consequences realistic / valid?

8. Critical Thinking - Knowledge
Improving your thinking with Knowledge
Knowledge of Yourself
A Commitment to safety, not following feelings or preference
Positive Attitudes, persistence, resourcefulness, learning from failure
Attention to detail and seeing the big picture; determining relevance, assessing risk
Knowledge about the Thinking Processes
Knowing the facts necessary to do a task by seeking information
Knowing how to do a task, how to scan, understand, and think ahead
Knowing why certain strategies work, when to use them, why one is better than another
Knowledge to control your Thinking
Self evaluation, assessing current technical knowledge, setting objectives, selecting resources
Self regulation, checking progress; reviewing choices, procedures, and objectives
Planning, choosing and evaluating a path to the objective
Valuable Intellectual Virtues - Yourself
Intellectual Humility: Being aware of your knowledge, being sensitive to self-deception, bias, prejudice and a limiting viewpoint.
Intellectual Courage: Being aware of the need to face and fairly address ideas, beliefs or viewpoints on which you have strong negative emotions and may not have given serious thought.
Intellectual Empathy: Being aware of the need to put yourself in the place of others in order to understand them. Being able to reconstruct accurately other people’s viewpoints and reasoning from premises, assumptions, and ideas other than our own. (See the other persons point of view)
Intellectual Integrity: Recognising the need to be true to your thinking; being consistent in the standards applied; holding yourself to the same standards of evidence and proof as for your antagonists; to practice what is suggested for others; and to honestly admit errors and inconsistencies in your thought and action.
Intellectual Perseverance: Being aware of the need to use intellectual insights and truths in spite of difficulties, obstacles, and frustrations. Following rational principles despite the irrational opposition of others; knowing the need to resist confusion and unanswered questions to achieve deeper understanding or insight.
Faith In Reason: Having confidence that your interests and those around you is best served by open reasoning, by encouraging people to come to their own conclusions. That people can learn to think for themselves, to form rational viewpoints, draw reasonable conclusions, think coherently and logically, persuade each other by reason, and become reasonable persons, despite the obstacles in everyone’s character, personality, or culture.
Fair-mindedness: Being aware of the need to treat all viewpoints alike, without reference to one's own feelings or interests, or the feelings or interests of your co workers, group, community, or nation; this implies adherence to intellectual standards without reference to your advantage or the advantage of your group. (Peer pressure)
(Expert: A person with a high degree of skill in or knowledge of a certain subject.)
Graphic credit FAA
Planning is the process of thinking about what you will do in the event of something happening or not happening

9. Critical Thinking - Behaviour
Improving your thinking by changing behaviour
Changing your thinking habit requires effort; clear thinking is an essential
part of airmanship, which has to be developed throughout your career.
Basic training only provides those skills necessary to be safe.
Safe: Continuation training and experience enables an effective operation.
Effective: More technical knowledge, practiced skills, and more experience leads to an efficient operation.
Efficient: Skilful command in controlling the aircraft and team leadership adds experience and moves towards an expert operation.
Expert: An operator who has gained and who maintains a high standard of technical and non-technical skills as a result of great personal effort.
“Experience is a wonderful thing; it enables you to recognize an error when you make it again!”
Experts see the larger pattern and its implications. Experts quickly recognize situations and appropriate responses. Experts are better at diagnosing problems and predicting the future.
A well cultivated critical thinker:
Raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely;
Gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively
Comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards;
Thinks open-mindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as required, knowing their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences; and
Communicates effectively with others in identifying solutions to complex problems.
Manages interruptions and distractions, attention resource
Avoids judgments which are influenced by what is typical, or judgments based on what come easily to mind, or relying on what comes to mind first
Knows what is of importance and why.
“Most people need to do more thinking. This does not just mean coping with a situation or deciding which routine to use. Most thinking involves analyzing a situation, identifying a standard element and then applying the standard response. This is excellent - but only part of the thinking.
There is a need to observe your own thinking in action. What are the strong points? What are the weak points? Do you make use of concepts? How do you agree? How do you disagree?
Watch your own thinking and watch the thinking of others. Note habits that are effective and those which are misleading.
In order to watch your thinking in action you need to be thinking about something other than your usual work.
If we change our thinking methods (especially as regards perception) our values, attitudes and behaviour will follow”. E de Bono
“An expert is someone who has chosen to learn from mistakes (experience), self teaches and visualises, recognises other expert performers and moulds that to their advantage, and chooses suitable behaviours to both act out and role model the expert which has then become part of that persons psyche in the passage of time”. Capt John Willats
Expert thinkers
Focus on relevant issues
Identify essential information
Consider information on merit
Test and check the basis of their awareness and decisions

10. Critical Thinking - Personal Briefing
Improving your thinking - Briefing
Before flight, self briefing reinforces memory cues and knowledge, these aid the recall of information for use in situation assessment and decision making.
Know on what, who, where, and when to prioritise your attention
Always brief routine operations – repetition aids memory
Structure the briefing along the intended flight path
Visualise your actions (plane, path, people)
Consider the significant threats
Recall lessons from training
Refresh SOPs
Questions
Briefing guidelines
Aim A safe and efficient flight
Motivation Professional pride
Outline Flight phases
Link to SOPs
Improving critical thinking
Practice, practice, practice
Knowledge; memory skills
Take a wide view – involve other people
Consider several options, … what if
Be prepared to change your view / plan
Test the accuracy of information and ‘facts’
“Ensure that the only situation that you talk yourself into is a safe one”
Expertise is not only what you remember, it is how you remember information and how you will recall it.
Memory recall is quicker with facts in order - What, Who, Where, When (4W)
Graphic credit BAE SYSTEMS
Do not rush:
Your thoughts control your actions

11. Critical Thinking - Personal Debrief
Improving your thinking - Debrief
After each flight consider the following points; Plus, Minus, Interesting (PMI)
Plus:-
What was good
What went according to plan
Minus:-
What was not so good, and why
What didn’t you know, find the answer before the next flight
Interesting:-
Have you changed the way in which you see things; threats, risks, people or procedures
What did you learn, why, and where did the information come from
Will you share this with others, if not why not
Anything for a safety event report (ASR)
Any issues for confidential reporting
Did you experience:-
High workload
Poor attitudes
Biased opinions
Mismanaged time
Unanswered questions
Plus
Minus
Interesting
Debriefing
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. - Orville Wright
Debriefing: (causes, effects, characteristics, etc). Mood, emotion, stress, fatigue, ‘getting behind the aircraft’, peer pressure, hazardous attitudes, ‘press on itis’, fixed mindset, reduced situation awareness, and times of confusion
Identify examples of good and bad thinking
Connect issues to training or prior knowledge
Compare/contrast with another flight/experience
Critique/evaluate judgement, apply this to a situation, scenario or case
What were you most satisfied with how you worked?
When were you least satisfied? What skills did you use / need
What do you feel that you improved? In what ways do you feel more capable?
What were the chief obstacles to being efficient? What will you do differently next time?
To improve you thinking you might ask yourself questions like these:
When did I do my worst thinking today? When did I do my best?
What in fact did I think about today? Did I figure anything out?
Did I allow any negative thinking to frustrate me unnecessarily?
If I had to repeat today what would I do differently? Why?
Did I do anything today to further my long-term goals?
Did I act in accordance with my own expressed values?
If I spent everyday this way for 10 years, would I at the end have accomplished something worthy of that time?
Skills to improve, Queries to look up, Things still to discover, Procedures to reconfirm
Credit: ‘PMI’ (E de Bono)

12. Thinking about Situation Awareness and Decision Making
Situation Awareness and Decision Making depend on our ability to think.
Thinking enables humans to be very successful, but this ability also enables errors, which if not controlled increase the risks in our daily activities.
All flight and ground operations
Value your ability, use it wisely
Threats
Errors
Undesired States
Attention resources
Decision Making
Situation
Awareness
Senses:
See
Hear
Touch
Smell
Taste
Action
Monitor
Feedback
Review
Response
Hint: run the presentation graphic, then review the speakers notes.
What exactly is the situation/ problem ?
How can I put it into the form of a question?
How does it relate to my goals, purposes, and needs?
State the problem as clearly and precisely as you can.
Study the initial information to clarify the “kind” of problem or situation that you are dealing with. Figure out, what sorts of things you are going to have to do to solve it. (Sensing)
Distinguish Problems over which you have some control, from problems over which you have no control. Concentrating your efforts on those problems you can potentially solve. (Choice)
Figure out the information you need and actively seek that information. (Sensing)
Carefully analyze and interpret the information you collect, drawing what reasonable inferences you can. (Comparison)
Figure out your options for action. What can you do in the short term? In the long term?
Recognize your limitations as far as time, and resources. (Comparison)
Evaluate your options, taking into account their advantages and disadvantages in the situation you are in. (Choice)
Adopt a safe strategic approach to the problem and follow through on that strategy. This may involve direct action or a carefully thought-through wait-and-see strategy.
When you act, monitor the implications of your action as they begin to emerge. Be ready at a moment’s notice to revise your actions if the situation requires it. (Monitor)
Be prepared to shift your plans or your analysis or statement of the problem, or all three, as more information about the problem becomes available to you.
Error: A mismatch between the perceived and actual situation
A mismatch between intended and actual outcomes of deciding to act.
Working memory
Long term memory - knowledge, bias, beliefs
Pattern recognition
Comparison
Choice
Selection

13. Critical Thinking - for Situation Awareness
Critical thinking for Situation Awareness – seeking information
Essential components:
Accuracy; is the information true
Clarity; is the information understood
Precision; seek detail to understand the situation
Relevance; is the information connected to the situation
Depth; does the information address the complexity of the situation
Breadth; are there other points of view or other ways to consider this situation
Logic; does your understanding of the situation make sense
Whenever you don’t understand something, ask yourself a question for clarification ?
“Situations are discovered, not created”
Questions for any situation:
What are the immediate risks?
What is the time available for the decision?
these determine, in part, the type of thinking skills to be used in decision making (skill, rule, or knowledge)
Origin of information:
How did you come to think this?
Can you remember the circumstances in which you formed this belief?
Supporting information:
Why do you believe this?
Do you have evidence for this?
What are some of the reasons why people believe this?
In believing this, aren't you assuming that such and such is true? Is
That a sound assumption do you think?
Conflict with other thoughts:
Some people might object to your understanding by saying . . .
How would you explain the situation to them?
What do you think of this contrasting view?
How would you answer the objection that . . .?
Implications and consequences:
What are the practical consequences of believing this?
What would we have to do to put it into action?
What follows from the view that . . .?
Wouldn't we also have to believe that in order to be
Is this consistent?
What does this imply?
Your description of a situation will depend on clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, coherence, logic, depth, consistency, and fairness of your observations.

14. Critical Thinking - for Decision Making
Critical thinking for Decision Making – the choice of action
Essential components:
What are the immediate risks
What is the time available for the decision
State the objective of the decision to be made
Identify information to be used in making the decision
Gather the evidence and information required to make a decision
Make a decision based on criteria (a safe outcome), information, and risks
Ask, what does the evidence and information mean considering the objective?
Routine
Trained
For
Unusual
Novel
Situation
Knowledge
Skill
Rules
Needs
Uses
Requires
Almost automatic action; actions have been thought-through during training
We can’t solve problems with the same thinking that we used to create them:- Albert Einstein
Proficient decision makers are skilled: they are able to recognize a large number of situations as familiar and to retrieve an appropriate response. In novel situations where no familiar pattern fits, proficient decision makers supplement recognition with processes that verify its results and correct problems.
In general, there are three types of options within decision-making: rule-based, choice, and creative.
For rule-based decisions, there is only one action required for a particular condition (often time constrained). Once the problem is recognized, the solution should be evident e.g. engine failure.
Choice decisions involve several options with trade-offs between them, e.g. selecting alternative airports. The choice of a suitable option depends on the objectives of the operator, the flight, and the circumstances (will involve risk assessment).
Creative decisions relate to situations in which no suitable options are readily available. The decision maker must think about the situation to find a solution e.g. using analogies to similar situations.
There are different reasons why pilots struggle with decision making: (G Klein)
Lack of experience (knowledge of risk), and External pressures (time pressure, ambiguity) or competing goals such as schedule versus safety;
How can pilots be helped to make better decisions? By teaching them how to ask better questions, one that are easier to answer and that are more productive - ‘on the job training’, e. g. during cruise the more experienced pilot shares his expertise to the less experienced pilot; allowing the less experience pilot to brief and fly a flight segment while the more experienced one monitors and coaches.
By teaching planning and briefing: this is looking at the vulnerable parts of the flight and preparing alternatives. There are no standard briefings or flight; seek out and brief the differences in each flight, however small and apparently insignificant, i.e. change in weight, wind, cloud, temp.
Think about which action applies to the situation, compare with training
Think about the situation, compare with standard actions, training, and previous experience

15. Critical Thinking Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is at the centre of all safety processes and human activity.
Critical Thinking
Whenever you don’t understand something, ask yourself a question of clarification.
Whenever you are dealing with a complex problem, formulate the question you are trying to answer in several different ways:
Am I focused on the main problem or task? How is this connected? How is that? Does my information directly relate to the problem or task? Where do I need to focus my attention? Are we being diverted to unrelated matters? Am I failing to consider relevant viewpoints? How is your point relevant to the issue we are addressing? What facts are actually going to help us answer the question?
What considerations should be set aside? Does this truly bear on the question? How does it connect?
Questions you can ask to discipline your thinking:
What precise question are we trying to answer? Is that the best question to ask in this situation? Is there a more important issue we should be addressing? Does this question capture the real issue we are facing? What information do we need to answer the question? What conclusions seem justified in light of the facts? What is our point of view? Do we need to consider another? Is there another way to look at the question? What are some related questions we need to consider?
Critical thinking is, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking.

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Note.  If you notice performance problems with the slide show after you change this setting, turn off the option. Your computer may not have this capability.
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Animation performance will be much better with a video card that has Microsoft Direct 3D. (Direct 3D is a component of Microsoft DirectX, which is a set of advanced multimedia system services built into the Microsoft Windows operating system.) Many video card manufacturers take advantage of this technology; check with the documentation you received with your computer to find out if Direct 3D is supported.
The eye cannot see what the mind does not understand.
(1) What do I ask?
(2) What are we trying to do?
(3) What did we accomplish?
(4) Why did it turn out that way?
(5) What else could we do?
(6) What would happen if we didn’t do it this way?
(7) What should we do?