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What is a cognitive task analysis (CTA)?
Cognitive task analysis (CTA) is defined as a set of methods for identifying cognitive skills, or mental demands, needed to perform an observable task. CTA works as an extension of traditional task analysis where a task is divided into steps, and subsequently additional sub-steps.
The first step of completing a CTA (and a traditional task analysis) is to familiarize yourself with the job or task and ensure that you have a sufficient base knowledge that would enable you to better understand how it should be broken down and what cognitive skills are primarily at play during a specific step. This can be done by either accessing literature and conducting research on the topic at hand or conducting interviews with subject matter experts that are highly familiar with the task.
The next step is identifying the knowledge representations used by subject matter experts while completing the designated task. One way to do this is to construct mental models that participants have of the task that would help identify how they have their knowledge structured.
What are mental models?
Mental models are structured representations of our knowledge of the outside environment. Knowledge can be divided into two categories: declarative and procedural knowledge. Declarative knowledge refers to information that is considered static such as memories for specific events or object knowledge learned through experiences with the environment. Procedural knowledge serves as the basis for skilled behaviors.
Examples of mental models for declarative knowledge:
Mind Maps - associations to one central concept or word
Concept Maps - associations between multiple concepts or words
Example of mental models for procedural knowledge:
Scripts - list of subsequent actions based on personal experiences
An example of a mind map can be seen below.
The final step in creating a CTA is the usage of knowledge elicitation techniques of which there are four common:
Structured interviews
Interruption analysis
Contrived techniques
Once information from these steps has been properly gathered, additional elements can be added to the original task analysis that indicates the cognitive skill associated with each specific sub-step.
References
J.M.C. Schraagen, S.E. Chipman, and V.L. Shalin (2000) Introduction to cognitive task analysis. In J.M.C. Schraagen, S.E. Chipman, and V.L. Shalin (Eds.) Cognitive task analysis (pp. 1-7). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.
Militello, L. G., & Hutton, R. J. (1998). Applied Cognitive Task Analysis (ACTA): A practitioner's toolkit for understanding cognitive task demands. Ergonomics, 41(11), 1618–1641. https://doi.org/10.1080/001401398186108
Jones, N. A., Ross, H., Lynam, T., Perez, P., & Leitch, A. (2011). Mental models: an interdisciplinary synthesis of theory and methods. Ecology and Society, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.5751/es-03802-160146
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