The reciprocal development of expertise in air traffic control

Learning in the high reliability domain has vital importance where public safety is dependant on the expertise and proficiency of practitioners. Air traffic control is one example of work that may be characterized as a technologically complex, high stress, real-time environment with little margin for error. This study investigates learning in the air traffic control workplace in the context of workplace changes, which required all experienced controllers to act as instructors of trainee controllers. Initially prescribed as a strategy to enhance organizational flexibility and to increase workplace efficiency, the initiative was shown to have unintended effects. The results reported show how an incidental and unintended reciprocal learning opportunity (through engaging in on-the-job-training) enriches the reflective learning process for instructors. Organizational strategies, which serve to refresh the expertise of practitioners while addressing the needs of workplace training, offer wide-ranging benefits in the high reliability domain where reflective practices are necessarily limited by the intensity and immediacy of the work.