Reliability of forecast of successful flight training based on professional psychological selection

oday’s military aviation imposes ever increasing requirements on the pilots’ professional qualities, thus complicating the problems related to the improvement of the quality of professional selection and training of military pilots. The research conducted by V.A. Ponomarenko and V.A. Bodrov introduced the term “prolonged selection” into aviation psychology, meaning professional psychological support of flight training. The forecasting of successful training at the early stage is an important part of this support and is the focus of this paper.

Methods. The aim of the study was to verify the forecast of successful flight training based on the professional psychological selection (PPS) at early stages of professional training and feasibility of such forecast in the form of integral estimation. For that purpose the authors used the academic progress estimates, the results of piloting skills development using flight simulators, the dynamics of professionally important qualities (PIQ) of cadets during the first two years of training in comparison with those indicators obtained during the PPS. The sample included 143 cadets. The test subjects were surveyed at their admission to the flight school and in the first two years of the course according to programs prescribed by the regulatory documents of the Russian Ministry of Defense and command of the Aerospace Forces. The survey is an obligatory condition for enrollment in a flight school and the subsequent flight training and does not contradict today’s ethical standards of scientific research. The surveyed cadets were distributed into two groups per categories of professional aptitude based on the results of PIQ survey conducted during the professional psychological selection: the 1-st group (55 people), the “fit” with good professional aptitude indicators, and the 2-nd group (88 people), the “conditionally fit” with acceptable professional aptitude indicators. Statistical analysis was carried out with Microsoft Office 2007 Excel descriptive statistics, Student’s t-test criterion for unpaired samples.

Results. The survey showed that the “fit” group, as compared to the “conditionally fit” are better adapted to the conditions of military service, have higher indicators of cognitive mental processes and sensorimotor abilities. They master course content and simulator training better. At the same time, in terms of their physiological and physical qualities the cadets of the two surveyed groups are indistinguishable and all show good results, which is confirmed by their grades in physical education and shows their good physical development and fitness.

Conclusions. The forecast of successful flight training made at the stage of professional psychological selection as a category of professional aptitude is confirmed at the initial stages of the cadets’ training during professional psychological support activities. The integral estimation composed of the results of academic progress, psychological, psychophysiological inspection survey data, results of simulator training can be used in subsequent flight training as the input for individual professional training programs. In order to improve the reliability of training, integrated automated methods are planned to be developed for the purpose of diagnosing current flying PIQs, as well as methods of their improvement and development [4].

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