Air-defense experiments

The Air-defense experiments were a set of several experiments performed from 1952 until 1954 by RAND's Systems Research Laboratory. The experiments were designed to provide information about organizational learning and how teams improved their performance through practice.

The series of experiments were actually four different experiments code named Casey, Cowboy, Cobra, and Cogwheel. While the first experiment, Casey, used college students as crew for the air defense scenario, members of the United States Airforce were used in the later experiments. The crews and experimental sessions varied between the different experimental actions:

• Casey: 28 college students, 54 4-hour sessions
• Cowboy: 39 Air Force officers and airmen, 22 8-hour sessions
• Cobra: 40 Air Force officers and airmen, 22 8-hour sessions
• Cogwheel: 33 Air Force officers and airmen, 14 4-hour sessions

The purpose of the experiments were to examine how teams of men operated in a complex and high stress environment. The experimental design was to simulate an air defense control center in which the team was presented with simulated radar images showing air traffic as well as simulated telephone conversations with outside agencies reporting additional information such as interceptor availability as well as confirmation of civilian aircraft. "Thus, the input to the center contains detailed, redundant information about a few very important events and many unimportant events in its task environment." (Chapman, Kennedy, Newell, and Biel, 1959).

(Chapman, Kennedy, Newell, and Biel, 1959) writes that "the air-defense experiments were more a search for a framework for comprehending organizational behavior than tests of particular hypotheses."

The experiment series generated a great deal of both qualitative and quantitative data and the results of earlier experiments were used to improve the experimental aparatus and organization for later versions of the experiment.

While the first experiment, Casey, was conducted with college students, the researchers determined that culture was a large factor in team as well as individual performance. While an attempt had been made to approximate a military culture in the college student team, the researchers decided that use of actual military personnel would provide more success.

The original experimental design was to provide a particular level of difficulty to determine how well the air-defense team was able learn the individual tasks as well as the intra-team coordination needed to be successful at the air-defense task. The research team modified the experimental design after the results of Casey indicated that crews were able to learn rapidly enough that the experiment basically provided no useful information as the crew was able to accomodate the level of difficulty within a few sessions becoming so effective that "the college students were maintaining highly effective defense of their area while playing word games and doing homework on the side."

Beginning with Cowboy, the air-defense crews were presented with a series of sessions each of which had a higher task load than the previous session. The task load was made up of two variables, kind and number of unknown and hostile aircraft and characteristics of friendly traffic among which the hostile aircraft were sprinkled.

(Chapman, Kennedy, Newell, and Biel, 1959) writes in conclusion that "the four [experimental] organizations behaved like organisms. Not only did the experiments provide graphic demonstrations of how much performance difference resulted from learning, but they also showed how differently the same people used the same tools under essentially the same load conditions at different times. The structures and procedures that glued functional components together so changed that an organization was only nominally the same from day to day."

Chapman, Robert L., Kenedy, John L., Newell, A., Biel, William C. (1959). The Systems Research Laboratory's Air Defense Experiments. Management Science, Vol 5, No. 3 (Apr, 1959)

Schon, Donald (1983). The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action. Basic Books. (page 189-191).