Record Detail

Training simulators are largely deployed to provide operators working withincomplex systems to instil adequate skills to handle normal and abnormal situations.Improved technology and higher computation power have significantly increased theuse of training simulators in the training programs. The goal of this pilot study is todetermine the design of training in order to prepare for complex tasks within themaritime domain. In this experimental study, students are trained to perform dockingoperations when ocean currents with increasing complexity are introduced in thetraining program. The effect of the training is evaluated by comparing two groups:one trained with homogenous currents and the other with heterogeneous currents.Objective performance measures are used to analyse the participants’performance.The results indicate that when the participants were exposed to tasks with graduallyincreasing complexity, they performed better as compared to those who were exposedto complex tasks too early in the training. The results suggest that even though thetechnology and computational power provide for new possibilities in training simula-tors, new features that make the tasks more complicated should not be included tooearly in the training without sufficient investigation. It is also found that increasingfunctional fidelity of the simulation during training has resulted in the improvedperformance of the participants during the complex tasks (docking operations), ascompared to those training with the highest fidelity from the beg