The Effects of Supervisor Experience and the Presence of a Shift Technical Advisor on the Performance of Two-Man Crews in a Nuclear Power Plant Simulator

This report describes a training simulator experiment to evaluate the effects of the experience level of the Senior Reactor Operator (SRO) and the presence of a Shift Technical Advisor (STA) on the performance of nuclear power plant control room crews.

Sixteen two-man crews of licensed operators were employed in a 2 × 2 factorial design. The SROs leading the crews were split into “high” and “low” experience groups on the basis of their years of experience as an SRO. One half of the high- and low-SRO experience groups were assisted by an STA or an SRO acting as an STA. The crews responded to four simulated plant casualties. A five-variable set of content-referenced performance measures was derived from task analyses of the procedurally correct responses to the four casualties. System parameters and control manipulations were recorded by the computer controlling the simulator. Data on communications and procedure use were obtained from analysis of videotapes of the exercises. Questionnaires were used to collect subject biographical information and data on subjective workload during each simulated casualty.

For four of the five performance measures, no significant differences were found between groups led by “high” (25–114 months) and “low” (1–17 months as an SRO) experience SROs. However, crews led by “low” experience SROs tended to have significantly shorter task performance times than crews led by “high” experience SROs. The presence of the STA had no significant effect on overall team performance in responding to the four simulated casualties.