DRU Collaborative Research: Understanding mental models of expertise in construction management using interactive adaptive simulations

本研究利用最新的模拟和数据分析技术的进展，调查在复杂的动态施工管理方案的决策认知和工程方面。专业知识在管理危机情景方面发挥着至关重要的作用，这些情景要求在时间、资源和迅速展开的事件的限制下做出关键决策。这种危机情景的一个例子是管理复杂的重型建筑项目。在这种情况下，有效的决策需要了解几个同时发生的事件之间复杂的相互关系，并为时间和空间反馈带来的不确定性和风险做好准备。这种知识是通过将经验知识吸收和组织成难以形式化或分析感知的信息模式而归纳构建的。研究人员建议调查的动态和变化的认知知识组织模式，或心理模型，决策，特别是在施工经理，这项研究工作的目标将是使用跨学科的方法来了解专家和新手施工经理在他们的知识组织，信息处理，风险评估和决策不同的施工管理危机的情况。将与建筑管理公司合作开发关键建筑场景的交互式自适应模拟，并对专家和新手建筑经理进行测试，以捕获将被分析以开发专业知识的心理模型的人与主体交互数据。此外，教学界面将被集成到模拟使用教学代理，它将被部署在施工管理课程，以测试其有效性作为新手决策者的培训环境。这也将使研究人员能够研究新手如何在模拟训练环境中构建知识。

This research uses recent advances in simulations and data analysis techniques to investigate the cognitive and engineering aspects of decision making in complex dynamic construction management scenarios. Expertise plays a crucial role in managing crisis scenarios that call for critical decision making under constraints of time, resource, and rapidly unfolding events. An example of such a crisis scenario is managing complex heavy construction projects. In such scenarios, effective decision making requires knowledge of complex inter-relationships between several simultaneous events and preparing for the uncertainty and risks arising from feedbacks in time and space. Such knowledge is inductively constructed by assimilating and organizing experiential knowledge into patterns of information that are difficult to formalize or analytically perceive. The researchers propose to investigate the dynamics and variation of such cognitive knowledge organization patterns, or mental models, of decision making, specifically among construction managers.This goal of this research effort will be to use an interdisciplinary approach to understand how expert and novice construction managers differ in their knowledge organization, information processing, risk assessment, and decision making in construction management crisis scenarios. Interactive, adaptive simulations of critical construction scenarios will be developed in collaboration with construction management firms, and expert and novice construction managers will be tested in them to capture human-subject interaction data that will be analyzed to develop mental models of expertise. In addition, an instructional interface will be integrated into the simulation using pedagogical agents, and it will be deployed in the construction management curriculum to test its effectiveness as a training environment for novice decision makers. This will also allow the researchers to investigate how novices construct knowledge in simulated training environments.