An objective approach to identifying diagnostic expertise among power system controllers

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Human Factors Engineering
• Power Systems Engineering

Background:

• Understanding cognitive processes distinguishing novice, competent, and expert performance in remote diagnosis is limited.
• Cue acquisition and utilization are potential mechanisms for the transition from novice to expert performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if performance on cue-based cognitive tasks differentiates power control operators into novice, competent, and expert groups.
• To assess the diagnostic performance differences among these operator groups.

Main Methods:

• Four distinct cue-based tasks were administered to 65 power system control operators.
• Participants had varying levels of industry experience and completed tasks during in-service training.

Main Results:

• Cluster analysis identified three distinct operator groups based on cue-based task performance.
• These groups showed significant differences in their diagnostic performance.

Conclusions:

• Assessing the ability to extract and utilize cues can differentiate expert from competent power control practitioners.
• This assessment method may be valuable for distinguishing expert from non-expert practitioners in remote diagnosis settings.