The aviation community has invested great amounts of money, time, and effort into crew resource management (CRM) training. Using Kirkpatrick's (1976) framework for evaluating training, the authors reviewed 58 published accounts of CRM training to determine its effectiveness within aviation. Results indicate CRM training generally produces positive reactions, enhances learning, and promotes desired behavioral changes. However, the authors were not able to ascertain whether CRM has an effect on an organization's safety bottom line. The current state of the literature with regard to evaluation of CRM training programs is discussed and, as a result, a call is made for the need to conduct systematic, multilevel evaluation efforts that will show the true effectiveness of CRM training. As many evaluations do not collect data across levels, the impact of CRM cannot be truly determined; thus more and better evaluations are called for.
Abstract