EP 29 ‘Deriving Expert Knowledge of Situational Awareness in Law Enforcement’ with Dr. Juha-Matti Huhta and Dr. Paula Di Nota

Law enforcement trainers frequently stress the importance of Situational Awareness or 'SA'. But what even is it? If you ask a room full of trainers, you will get as many varied answers as there are people in the room! And yet, situational awareness in other domains has been found to be the hallmark of expert performance. Experts have developed ways of rapidly assessing an unfolding, often ambiguous event, and knowing what to anticipate, where to scan, how to understand what they are seeing, and are then able to make the most effective decisions to solve the problem. In this interview, Dr’s Huhta and Di Nota will discuss the research they conducted on expert performers and their situational awareness patterns in law enforcement. The paper which serves as the foundation for this discussion is titled “Deriving Expert Knowledge of Situational Awareness in Policing: a Mixed-Methods Study” and was published in the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology in 2023. In this interview, we explore: ·      The importance of situational awareness, ·      The definition of situational awareness – what does it mean? ·      How experts actually attend to and process unfolding incidents, ·      Differences between how experts and novices scan and assess a scene, ·      The 7 themes of expert situational awareness, ·      Considerations for structuring a learning environment to assist students with the skill of developing situational awareness expertise, ·      Accelerating ‘game intelligence’ in training by applying the principles of the 7 S/A themes. As a reminder, the publication we are speaking about in this interview is available for download over at the Trainers Bullpen website at www.trainersbullpen.com