Title: Experimental Analysis of Task Prioritization Training for a Group of University

Task prioritization performance was evaluated for pilots who participated in a concurrent task management (CTM) training course and pilots who did not. CTM is the process by which pilots selectively attend to high priority tasks and shed non-priority tasks. Twenty seven pilots enrolled in a university flight technology program were randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control group. Pilots flew pretest and posttest simulated flights on an FAA approved flight training device (FTD). Twenty potential task prioritization errors were embedded at 14 locations within the flight scenarios. Pretest CTM performance of the two groups was comparable. During a two week period between pretest and posttest simulated flights pilots in the experimental group participated in a CTM training course designed and taught by an FAA certified flight instructor and pilots in the 'control group did not. A Mann-Whitney U test rejected the null hypothesis that there was no difference in posttest CTM errors between the groups, indicating a positive training effect for experimental group pilots. Longer term training effects were not evaluated. Different cognitive processing models described various pilot behaviors; som