Assesing Flight Performance for Gamers and Non-Gamers Using a Flight Rubric

The need for pilots is growing as it is estimated that by 2032, international aviation will be 80,000 pilots short. Research studies have proven that video game experience correlates with better performance in cognition and hand coordination tasks. Studies have also proven that video game experience correlates with better performance scores in flight simulators. However, these studies have a small sample size, therefore they lack generalization. This study intends to solve whether prior video game experience impacts novice pilots’ flight performance by using a larger sample size and a flight simulator. The participants are undergraduate students at KSU and were put into groups solely based on their video game experience: play video games or not. Before using the flight simulator, the participants were given an introductory video to watch to learn the basic controls. Subsequently, they piloted the simulator to get used to the simulator for five minutes. Then, they were asked to fly in a straight and level heading for thirty seconds. A camera recorded the dashboard so their performance could later be evaluated based on how much they deviated from the target metrics on a 1-5 scale for the altimeter, airspeed, attitude, and heading indicators. Two coders coded the flight recordings of the participants separately using the rubric. The interrater reliability of the coders was satisfactory (Kappa = 0.826). Additionally, initial results (based on 8 participants) show that gamers performed better overall than the non-gamers, however, this result isn’t statistically significant (p-value = 0.53). Additional data will be collected to confirm the initial results, which may assist with designing and developing an accelerated training path for pilots