job description for the nextgen mid-term atct controller - FAA Human ...

informal telephone interviews. These interviews allowed AIR to gather the information needed
to refine the lists. The majority of these informal communications were conducted with
individuals who participated in the focus groups. AIR also gathered input from an AIR team
member who has over 30 years experience in air traffic control, and who is also a human factors
researcher and a pilot.
The edits to the job Activities, Sub-Activities, and Task lists did not result in substantive changes
to the core ATCS job responsibilities. However, the lists were reorganized to be more logical;
reordered where appropriate to more closely follow the temporal sequence of the job; reworded
to be more consistent with today’s air traffic control culture; and edited to follow the proper
format. The edits to the KSAOs and the Tools and Equipment were more substantive. The
existing or draft lists were updated to be more consistent with today’s air traffic control work;
sorted into separate files; reorganized to be more logical; and reworded to be clearer. Finally,
AIR checked for correspondence between the lists. That is, AIR ensured that the Knowledges
required to perform Tasks were captured in the Knowledges list and the Skill needed to perform
the Tasks was captured in the Skills list. Substantive effort was made to make the lists across
facility type (i.e., Airport Traffic Control Tower [ATCT)], Terminal Radar Approach Control
[TRACON], and Air Route Traffic Control Center [ARTCC]) consistent—but only if the actual
Tasks were indeed the same across facility type. For example, the Tasks associated with
assuming position responsibility are largely the same across facility type and were modified to be
more consistent. The final lists of Activities, Sub-Activities, and Tasks; KSAOs; and Tools and
Equipment are available in both Microsoft Excel workbook form (American Institutes for
Research, 2011a) and as part of a more detailed technical report (American Institutes for
Research, 2011b).
These newly revised job analytic data for the current job ultimately served multiple purposes.
First, these data provided the information required for AIR’s description of the current job in this
report. Second, these data served as the baseline against which AIR applied information about
the NextGen Drivers and other NextGen information, which in turn served as the basis for AIR’s
evaluation of whether and how the job will change by 2018. This approach was taken because
the purpose of this strategic job analysis is to describe how an existing job—the ATCS job—will
change, rather than to describe a completely new job that does not yet exist.
Review NextGen Documentation
After updating the description of the current job, AIR began developing the vision for the job as
it will exist in 2018. This substantive research process comprised several steps. First, AIR
reviewed the available NextGen documentation, including the Federal Aviation Administration’s
(FAA) 2009 and 2010 NextGen Concept of Operations; multiple iterations of the Operational
Improvements (OIs); the FAA’s 2009 and 2010 NextGen Implementation Plans; RTCA’s 2009
NextGen Mid-Term Implementation Task Force Report and the FAA’s response to it; and many
others as identified in Appendix C. These documents helped AIR understand the FAA’s goals
and priorities for the implementation of NextGen automation systems, the benefits associated
with each, and the implementation timeline of the technologies, automation, and procedures.
Despite the informative nature of the NextGen documentation, these documents captured
NextGen at a high level and did not contain the detailed information needed to build a vision for
how the job of the ATCS would change. For example, AIR needed information about how the
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