Situational Awareness Skills

760 Words4 Pages
I believe that there are many skill that people take for granted and do not practice or exercise that they should all master. Among these skills is situational awareness. I believe that situational awareness is the one skill that everyone should master and use every single day. As the term implies, situational awareness refers to ‘awareness’ of the ‘situation.’ Grammatically, situational awareness refers to awareness that only happens sometimes in certain situations. "Situation awareness" is the correct term for the field of study that concerns the knowledge and understanding of the environment that is critical to those who need to make decisions in complex areas such as aviation, air traffic control, driving, power plant operations, heavy machinery operations, and military command and control. At its core, situation awareness involves being aware of what is happening around you to understand how information, events, and your own actions will impact your goals and objectives, both now and in the near future. Lacking situational awareness or having inadequate situational awareness has consistently been identified as one of the primary factors in accidents attributed to human error. Thus, situational awareness is especially important in work domains where the information flow can be quite high and poor decisions may lead to serious consequences (e.g., piloting an airplane, functioning as a soldier, Operating a fast moving saw or other heavy machinery, or treating critically ill or injured patients). However, in addition to the issue arising from accidents caused by a lack of situational awareness, many people often find themselves in a dangerous situation that they had no knowledge of until there is a serious negative consequence to themselves. People often enter into situations that will ultimately cause them significant harm simply because they had an
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