Trade-offs & Information Utilization for Directive vs Exploratory Situation Awareness Development

This paper investigates how individuals and teams in complex, high-stakes environments manage directive and exploratory situation awareness (SA), and how they transition between these modes in response to contextual demands. Directive SA reflects exploitation (efficient, goal-oriented information use), while exploratory SA represents exploration, involving open-ended monitoring, troubleshooting, and model building. Drawing on frameworks of exploration vs exploitation and Ericsson's theory of deliberate practice, this work examines how motivation, workload, and expertise development shape the use of each SA mode. Exploratory behavior, often driven by intrinsic motivation, supports learning, conceptual understanding, and long-term adaptability, while directive behavior, motivated intrinsically by performance or time constraints, promotes precision and efficiency but may limit user engagement and feedback integration. Through analysis of data from the FAA-funded PEGASAS 36 Project, which examined general aviation pilots' decision-making under uncertainty, this paper explores how information system design affects confidence, decision strategies, and SA. This analysis is accompanied by qualitative observations from the author's experiences as CAPCOM for two Purdue MDRS analog Mars missions to illustrate real-world manifestations of SA transitions in ambiguous, poorly structured communication environments. Together, these findings contribute to human factors research by clarifying the trade-offs between exploration and exploitation in SA, the cognitive mechanisms that underlie switching between them, and how interface design can better support adaptive, context-sensitive SA in high-reliability domains such as aviation or spaceflight.

Evv Boerwinkle is a master’s student in Industrial Engineering at Purdue University in the GROUPER lab directed by Dr. Barrett Caldwell, specializing in aerospace human factors. Her research explores how humans manage directive and exploratory situation awareness in complex operational environments such as aviation and spaceflight. She currently serves as a research assistant on the FAA PEGASAS project examining pilot decision-making and has participated as CAPCOM for Purdue’s analog Mars missions. Her broader interests include cognitive workload, interface design, and human–automation teaming for long-duration space exploration.