ARRC JOURNAL
SITUATIONAL AWARENESS:
A POORLY UNDERSTOOD
CONSTRUCT?
Major Guy Cheesman, British Army
Doctrine concerning understanding and decision-making emphasises the importance of
situational awareness (SA), yet stops short of satisfactorily explaining the construct. 1
The author describes SA using Mica Endsley’s model of dynamic decision-making,
referenced in Joint Doctrine Note 3/11, and shows why team and shared SA (SSA) is not
derived simply from the sum of individuals’ SA. 2
Origins of SA
Oswald Boelke is generally attributed
as the first person to chronicle SA as a
construct, recognising the “importance
of gaining an awareness of the enemy
before the enemy gained a similar
awareness.” 3 Academic research came
much later, its rising prominence driven
by attempts to better understand the
ability of people to perform complex
tasks in dynamic environments. 4 5 A
commonly agreed definition does not
exist, although the construct is commonly
accepted as extending from individual
SA (to Team, then to Shared SA (SSA))
and is described both as a product and
a process. 6 7 Situational Awareness is
defined within NATO doctrine as the
“knowledge of the elements in the
battlespace necessary to make well-
informed decisions.” 8 9
Importance of SA to Decision
Making and Military outputs
Within NATO, SA is deemed vital to
generating desired military outputs, linked
together by the commander’s primary
duty: Decision making. 10 Research
supports this notion, emphasising SA
as being the key feature dictating the
success of the decision process, which
is a pre-condition for the commander to
achieve execution superiority. 11 12 13
Individual SA
Three classifications of individual SA
stand out: Definitions based upon
how individuals process information,
definitions that emphasise an individual’s
mental representation of reality (dynamic
reflection) and those that centre on the
interactions between the individual and
the world around them. 15 Since the tidal
point of research seeking to define SA,
Mica Endsley’s explanation appears
more than any other since its publication
in 1987 and informs influential books on
the construct. 15
Endsley defines SA as “the perception
of the elements in the environment
within a volume of time and space, the
comprehension of their meaning, and
the projection of their status in the near
future.” 16 Her definition comprises three
1 JDP 04 Understanding and Decision Making, JDN 3/11 Decision Making and Problem
Solving: Human and Organisational Factors
2 JDN 3/11 para 221.
3 Gilson 1995, p.3.
4 Endsley & Jones 2012 p.13, Salmon et al 2009 p.8, Panteli & Kirschen 2014, Durso and
Gronlund 1999.
5 Smith & Hancock 1995, p.137, Sarter & Woods 1991 p.47.
6 Salmon et al 2009 p.8.
7 Endsley and Jones 2012 p.19, Salas et’al 1995 p.124.
8 JDP 01.1.1.
30
ALLIED RAPID REACTION CORPS
levels: Perception, comprehension and
projection, which are situated in her
dynamic decision making model (Figure
1). She argues that an individual must
first perceive the elements within a
situation, derived through an individual’s
senses. The next step is to comprehend
what elements mean through their
synthesis and, importantly, in the context
of their task or mission. The third stage
is the short-term projection of what
might happen based on achieving
Level 1 and Level 2 SA, from which a
decision is made and an action follows.
The observe-orient-decide-act (OODA)
loop can be mapped across this model,
making it entirely relevant for use by
commanders at the tactical level. There
are critics of Endsley’s model, although
the merits of this and other SA research
fall outside the scope of this essay. 17
9 AAP 06 2017 p104.
10 AJP 01, para 5.2, MoD 2016 para 0606.
11 Endsley, 1995 p.34, Salas et al 1995 p.123, Smith and Hancock 1995 p.140, Bedne &
Mesiter 1999 p.64, Flach 1995 p.151.
12 Endsley and Jones 2012, p.10.
13 ARRC SOI 0070.
14 Stanton, Chambers and Piggot 2001, Salmon et al 2009.
15 Wickens 2008 p.397, Salmon et al, 2009 p.8.
16 Endsley, 1995 p.36.
17 Salmon et al 2009 p. 18, Bedny and Meister 1999 p.65.