CUE-driven Retrospection–a data Capturing Technique

Abstract

A cue-driven retrospection (CDR) method is presented here that is developed for modeling the decision making process of naturalistic decision makers. The method is obtained from analysis of data obtained for nonroutine situations from fireground incident commanders and focuses on the use of cues instead of patterns. The method revolves around the tenet that in no routine situations, the decision makers think in a bottom-up fashion using the important, relevant and diagnostic cues intuitively (Shaikh, 2011); the method intends to capture the arguments that the firefighters give to term or not term a cue important, relevant and diagnostic. The thematic analysis of data gathered for Shaikh (2011) gave rise to this method. For testing the method, a total of 12 firefighters were asked to recall an incident that was of no routine nature and they were asked to fill the CDR template. The firefighters were provided a set of cues to assist in the activity and extract more mentally. The results shows that the firefighters were able to identify the relevance, importance and diagnosticity of cues. The CDR method can be used for naturalistic decision makers as well as for professionals such as design engineers, paramedics, and computer programmers etc. The method can be used for developing decision support systems, evaluating performance of decision makers, as certaining areas where more training is required, and for investigating the decision making process. This research in itself is one of its kind because fire brigade in Pakistan is mostly unexplored and how firefighters make decisions in the absence of even water and other basic resources needs to be investigated. Moreover this researcher found them highly non cooperative in this research endeavor.