Wright State University CORE Scholar Browse all Theses and Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2015 Chat Communication in a Command and Control Environment: How Does It Help? April M. Courtice Wright State University Follow this and additional works at: https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/etd_all Part of the Industrial and Organizational Psychology Commons Repository Citation Courtice, April M., "Chat Communication in a Command and Control Environment: How Does It Help?" (2015). Browse all Theses and Dissertations. 1594. https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/etd_all/1594 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at CORE Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Browse all Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of CORE Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CHAT COMMUNICATION IN A COMMAND AND CONTROL ENVIRONMENT: HOW DOES IT HELP? A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By APRIL M. COURTICE M.S., Wright State University, 2006 B.A., Indiana State University, 2003 2015 Wright State University WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL August 1, 2015 I HEREBY RECOMMEND THAT THE DISSERTATION PREPARED UNDER MY SUPERVISON BY April M. Courtice ENTITLED Chat Communication In A Command And Control Environment: How Does It Help? BE ACCEPTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF Doctor of Philosophy. __________________________________ John M Flach, Ph.D. Dissertation Director __________________________________ Debra Steele-Johnson, Ph.D. Department Chair __________________________________ Robert E. W. Fyffe, Ph.D. Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School Committee on Final Examination __________________________________ John M. Flach, Ph.D. __________________________________ Kevin B. Bennett, Ph.D. ________________________________ Valerie L. Shalin, Ph.D. __________________________________ Benjamin A. Knott, Ph.D. __________________________________ W. Todd Nelson, Ph.D. The views expressed in this dissertation are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. iii ABSTRACT Courtice, April Michelle. Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Wright State University, 2015. Chat communication in a command and control environment: Does it harm or help? Military command and control (C2) teams are often faced with difficult, complex, and distributed operations amidst the fog and friction of war. To deal with this uncertainty, teams rely on clear and effective communication to coordinate their actions; two current conduits for communication in distributed military teams include voice (i.e., radio) and chat. Chat communication is regarded by many in the C2 world as the premier method of communicating with the power to lessen some of the traffic and disturbances of current voice communication, and its usage continues to exponentially increase. Despite this operational view, countless laboratory studies have demonstrated detrimental effects of chat communication relative to voice communication. The current study investigates the gap between laboratory research results and usage in complex environments, and empirically tests the effects that chat communication has on tactical C2 performance through an air battle management synthetic task environment. Results demonstrate that participants performed better on time-critical, emergent events with voice communication and better on preplanned missions when they had access to archival information. Voice communication is a valuable, high bandwidth channel that is essential for coordination in highly complex situations, while chat communication is a nonintrusive form of communication that allows the operator flexibility in prioritizing the information flow iv through the use of archival information. The challenge in operational settings with overcrowded radio channels, however, is to protect the voice channel to ensure it is available when the situation demands it. With careful implementation, voice and chat communication can be complementary technologies to facilitate complex work. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page I. Introduction ...............................................................................................1 a. Complexity in Military Operations .....................................................1 b. Communication as a Means of Doing Complex Work .......................5 c. Communication Technology .............................................................10 d. Dissertation Roadmap .......................................................................12 II. Chat Communication ..............................................................................14 a. ALCEC Model ..................................................................................16 b. Communication State Space .............................................................19 c. Simple Controlled Environments ......................................................22 i. Views of Chat Communication .............................................25 ii. Summary ...............................................................................37 d. Complex and/or Operational Environments ....................................37 i. Views of Chat Communication .............................................43 ii. Summary ...............................................................................48 e. Summary ..........................................................................................48 III. Operational Environment ........................................................................50 a. Overview ...........................................................................................50 b. Current Platforms ..............................................................................51 c. Functional Groups .............................................................................53 d. Air Battle Managers ..........................................................................54 e. Training Events and Locations .........................................................57 f. Discussion .........................................................................................59 vi IV. Chat Usage in the Operational Environment .........................................62 a. Participants ........................................................................................62 b. Instrument .........................................................................................63 c. Results ...............................................................................................65 d. Positive Attributes .............................................................................72 e. Negative Attributes ...........................................................................79 f. Conclusion .......................................................................................83 V. Bridging the Gap .....................................................................................85 a. Synthetic Task Environment .............................................................92 VI. Experimental Study Methods ..................................................................96 a. Participants ........................................................................................96 b. Design ...............................................................................................97 c. Apparatus ..........................................................................................98 d. DDD Scenario .................................................................................100 i. Scenario Roles ....................................................................101 ii. Scenario Elements ...............................................................101 iii. Scenario Events ...................................................................106 iv. Scenario Aids ......................................................................108 e. Scenario Players and Communication ...........................................112 i. Communication Rooms ......................................................112 ii. Confederate Roles ...............................................................114 iii. Scenario Communication ................................................... 116 f. Secondary Task ...............................................................................119 vii g. Procedure ........................................................................................121 i. Training ...............................................................................121 ii. Experimental Data Collection .............................................122 h. Dependent Measures .......................................................................124 i. Performance measures ........................................................124 ii. Process measures ................................................................124 iii. Individual Measures ............................................................127 VII. Results ...................................................................................................129 a. Performance Measures ....................................................................129 b. Process measures ............................................................................135