Universities worldwide have come to embrace the rhetoric of environmental sustainability and a commitment to climate action while simultaneously seeking to internationalize themselves within the context of the global economy. In seeking to internationalize, universities are highly dependent on air travel, for both their academic staff and…

This paper investigates how flight instructors view the utility of competency-based education/training (CBE/T) during the training of new pilots. A total of ten flight instructors were interviewed and analysed through an interpretive paradigm of grounded theory. The findings indicate flight instructors of all experience levels have difficulty…

This paper provides a perspective on learning in which training and situated learning complement each other in developing cabin crew competence. Traditionally, airlines have approached cabin crew training from a competency-based, behavioural perspective with limited engagement in the actual work context. This ethnographic study builds on…

This paper examines the learning and performance of the air traffic control (ATC) work domain. This domain was chosen because it embodies features that represent future work for many other industries (e.g., information service provision mediated by information technologies; a high reliance on communication skills and collaborative work; increasing…

Situation awareness is a key construct in human factors and arises from a process of situation assessment (SA). SA comprises the perception of information, its integration with existing knowledge, the search for new information, and the prediction of the future state of the world, including the consequences of planned actions. Causal models…

Purpose: Air travel is becoming increasingly recognized as a source of greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change. This is particularly relevant for the university sector, which relies heavily on staff air travel for domestic and international mobility. Design/methodology/approach: Using a qualitative content and textual analysis of…

The plane problem is a real-world problem, presented without any suggestion as to how it might be solved. It arose unexpectedly as the author was messing around on the internet, not thinking about maths at all. She did not encounter the problem in a maths lesson, nor as homework in the middle of a unit on a particular topic, and so she had no…

In Australian higher education institutions, benchmarks have been directed at developing key competencies and attributes to facilitate students' transition into the workforce. However, for those students whose degree has a specific vocational focus, it is also necessary for them to commence their professional development whilst undergraduates.…

Competency-based training (CBT) for pilots was formally introduced in 1999 by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) for training leading to the issue of aeroplane private and commercial pilot licences. This initiative followed the Australian government's introduction of CBT policy for vocational and workplace training in the late 1980's.…

Universities offering aviation degree courses face a dilemma when integrating flying training, which is vocational skills training, into an academic degree programme. Whilst flying training for a pilot's licence is provided by flying schools regulated by a country's Civil Aviation Authority, the HE sector is responsible for the academic standards…

As a result of investigations showing that communication problems can be a significant contributing factor to major aviation accidents, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has established a set of Language Proficiency Requirements. All pilots and air traffic controllers engaged in international aviation must be certified by their…

A series of linked relationships is advanced which together suggest changes should be made to training programs for airside drivers at major airports in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. Overall, the links suggest a relationship between the number of airside incidents such as collisions at airports, the ethnic diversity evident…

The proceedings of a working group conference on proficiency testing of Japanese as a second language contain a brief background paper distributed to conference invitees, a list of items included in the pre-conference portfolio, an advance organizer of potential discussion topics, a 77-item annotated list of bibliographies on second language…