(Your Name), Academic Affiliation Journal: Human Factors in Aviation or International Journal of Aerospace Psychology Abstract Objective: To design and empirically validate a Situational Judgement Test (SIT) tailored for Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) operators (SIT-UAS), assessing non-technical skills such as decision-making, situational awareness, and risk management.

Traditional technical assessments for UAS pilots focus on procedural knowledge, yet most operational failures stem from poor judgement under ambiguous or time-critical conditions. Existing selection tools lack scenario-based items specific to UAS challenges (e.g., beyond visual line of sight operations, lost link procedures).

Scenario: You are operating a UAS beyond visual line of sight. The ground control station displays a “Link Quality Low” warning, and you have not received a telemetry update for 12 seconds. Your mission objective is to survey a flooded area. What do you do?

Correct (expert rated best): B (Immediate RTH – prioritizes safety over mission) Least effective: A (Continued flight risks loss of aircraft)

Situational Judgement Tests (SJTs) present candidates with realistic, work-related scenarios and ask them to rate or choose among possible actions. SJTs predict job performance in many high-stakes professions (medicine, air traffic control) by assessing procedural knowledge and tacit decision-making rules (Lievens & Sackett, 2012). However, no validated SJT currently exists for UAS operators.

A three-phase mixed-methods approach: (1) Critical incident interviews with 20 expert UAS operators to generate realistic scenarios; (2) Expert panel (n=10) to establish correct/incorrect response keys; (3) Validation with 150 UAS trainees, comparing SIT-UAS scores against instructor ratings and simulator performance.

A. Continue the mission, hoping the link recovers. B. Immediately initiate return-to-home (RTH). C. Climb to higher altitude to improve line of sight. D. Wait 30 seconds, then command RTH if no recovery.