Multitasking and monitoring: applied practice: open practice pack: learner worksheet

1. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s01-q01

Four gauges are in view. Three sit comfortably within limits and are steady. The fourth is still inside its limit but has been drifting towards it for twenty minutes.

1. Attend to the drifting gauge now: a consistent trend predicts an exceedance, whereas a steady value is only a snapshot
2. Wait until it actually crosses the limit, then act
3. Attend to whichever gauge shows the highest absolute reading
4. Log all four readings and continue the scan

Answer:

2. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s01-q02

You are responsible for two displays that cannot both be in your field of view at once.

1. Watch the more important one continuously and check the other rarely
2. Alternate between them at random so neither is neglected predictably
3. Watch whichever one changed most recently
4. Adopt a fixed scan interval, and where possible put an audible alert on the display that is out of view

Answer:

3. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s01-q03

Which is the harder monitoring task to sustain: a display that changes constantly, or one that changes perhaps twice a shift?

1. The constantly changing one, because more information means more work
2. The rarely changing one: detection performance falls sharply when the events being watched for are rare
3. They are equally demanding over a full shift
4. It depends only on how large the display is

Answer:

4. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s01-q04

A monitoring task is to be staffed continuously for a six-hour period.

1. Performance will hold up provided the operator is motivated and alert
2. Performance will improve through the shift as familiarity builds
3. Detection performance declines measurably within the first half hour, so breaks, rotation, or automated detection have to be designed in
4. Performance declines only in the final hour or two

Answer:

5. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s01-q05

Two independent instruments reporting the same quantity disagree with each other.

1. Believe the newer instrument
2. Believe whichever reading matches what you expected
3. Take the average of the two
4. Treat the disagreement itself as a fault condition, and get an independent third check before acting on either reading

Answer:

6. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s02-q01

One alarm has fired forty times this week. Every single occurrence was investigated and every one was spurious.

1. Instruct operators to keep investigating each occurrence properly
2. Treat the false-alarm rate as a defect in its own right and fix or re-threshold it, because an alarm that cries wolf will be ignored, including the time it is real
3. Disable the alarm
4. Reduce its volume so it is less disruptive

Answer:

7. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s02-q02

How should the threshold for an alarm be chosen?

1. As sensitive as the instrument allows, so nothing is ever missed
2. At whatever level produces no false alarms at all
3. By the trade it makes: any threshold exchanges missed detections for false alarms, so it is set by the relative cost of the two errors
4. At the average of the values seen in normal operation

Answer:

8. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s02-q03

During an upset, eleven alarms fire within ninety seconds.

1. Look for a single upstream cause: correlated alarms are usually one event propagating through connected systems
2. Deal with them strictly in the order they arrived
3. Deal with the highest-priority one and clear the rest afterwards
4. Silence them all and restart the affected system

Answer:

9. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s02-q04

Reviewing an alarm list, you find one alarm that requires no operator action at all.

1. Keep it; more information is better than less
2. Keep it, but move it to a lower priority level
3. Keep it so that it appears in the event record
4. It should not be an alarm: reclassify it as an indication, because a non-actionable alarm spends the attention a real one needs

Answer:

10. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s02-q05

You silence an alarm so that you can concentrate on diagnosing it.

1. That is fine: the sound was the distraction, and it has been removed
2. An alarm should never be silenced before it is cleared
3. Silencing removes the sound and not the condition: acknowledge it in the system and keep the condition visible, or it will be forgotten
4. Silence it and reset it so the system is clean for the next event

Answer:

11. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s03-q01

Can a person genuinely perform two attention-demanding tasks at the same time?

1. Yes, with enough practice at the specific pair of tasks
2. Yes, provided the two tasks use different senses
3. Yes, for short periods before fatigue sets in
4. No: what feels like doing both is rapid switching, and every switch costs time and raises the error rate

Answer:

12. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s03-q02

You are interrupted partway through a task you will have to come back to.

1. Before you turn away, note where you are and what the next action is
2. Finish the sentence or step you are on, then turn to the interruption
3. Rely on memory; the task is familiar enough
4. Decline the interruption until the task is complete

Answer:

13. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s03-q03

Which pair of tasks can realistically be carried out together?

1. Any two tasks, provided both are familiar
2. Two tasks that each require decisions, if they are simple ones
3. One well-practised, largely automatic task alongside one demanding task, provided they do not compete for the same input or output channel
4. No two tasks can ever be genuinely combined

Answer:

14. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s03-q04

You come back to a checking task after a long interruption and cannot recall exactly where you had reached.

1. Carry on from where the work appears to have stopped
2. Go back to the last point you can positively verify and redo forward from there
3. Start the whole task again from the beginning
4. Ask a colleague what they saw you doing

Answer:

15. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s03-q05

A colleague asks you a quick question while you are partway through entering a record.

1. Finish the current record, then give them your full attention
2. Answer straight away; it is only a moment
3. Ignore them until the whole batch is complete
4. Answer while continuing to type

Answer:

16. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s04-q01

Conditions have changed enough that the priority order you set at the start of the shift is now wrong.

1. Continue with the agreed plan; consistency is worth something
2. Re-order your work quietly to fit the new picture
3. Re-rank explicitly against the new conditions, and tell the people who were relying on the previous order
4. Escalate and wait for a decision on the new priorities

Answer:

17. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s04-q02

A monitored parameter has sat just outside its stated limit for an hour. Nothing else appears to be wrong.

1. Widen the limit, since the process is evidently coping
2. Report it and have it assessed: normalising an exceedance is how limits stop meaning anything
3. Keep watching and act only if something else changes
4. Reset the instrument, which is the likelier fault

Answer:

18. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s04-q03

You are handing over a live monitoring position at the end of your shift.

1. Tell the incoming operator that everything is normal, if it is
2. Leave a written log; the record is what matters
3. Brief them verbally; a conversation carries more than a form
4. Hand over the current state, what changed on your shift, outstanding items with owners, and the things you are still unsure about: in person where possible, with the log as the record

Answer:

19. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s04-q04

You realise you missed a brief alarm two hours ago. Nothing appears to have come of it.

1. Report it now with the time and what you were doing, because a late report still allows recovery and the gap is itself useful information
2. Make a private note of it and watch for a recurrence
3. Mention it at the next handover
4. Say nothing, since no consequence followed

Answer:

20. multitasking-monitoring-applied-s04-q05

Automation has been introduced that handles most of the routine monitoring.

1. Operator attention can be reduced in proportion to the work removed
2. The job becomes supervising the automation and being able to take over, which is harder to sustain and needs deliberate practice on the manual task
3. Handovers become unnecessary, since the system holds the state
4. Alarm thresholds can be relaxed because the system reacts faster

Answer: