Measuring Mutual Awareness for Digital Human-Machine Interfaces: A Questionnaire for Simulator Studies

As technology shifts from analog to digital in the nuclear power plant (NPP) main control room (MCR), it is important to look into the concept of mutual awareness. As control rooms use teams consisting of at least two reactor operators (ROs) and one senior reactor operator (SRO) to monitor and operate the plant, they depend on efficient teamwork in this collaborative environment. To successfully perform interdependent tasks, achieve their shared goals and high levels of coordination, each crew member has to maintain mutual awareness between each other. Collaboration is more efficient and effective when a high level of mutual awareness is maintained. Being able to evaluate and measure mutual awareness will provide us with the construct for assessing the presence and changes in mutual awareness during the technology shift in NPP MCR. This paper investigates the opportunities to develop a mutual awareness survey based on the mutual awareness model.