Work

Recognizing and adjusting: developing an adaptive team information seeking framework for emergency situation assessment

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Effective situation assessment requires response teams to adapt their information seeking during emergencies. However, research on team adaptation often overlooks the specific cues and processes that support information seeking. Meanwhile, studies of collaborative information seeking and sensemaking rarely address how teams adapt to address emergent information needs. This study bridges this gap by proposing an integrative framework of adaptive team information seeking developed through a case study in which emergency response teams recognized cues of ambiguity and uncertainty and adjusted their search goals and tasks to address information needs that arose during a 2020 shooting incident in Phoenix, Arizona. Findings also highlight the need for teams to recognize goal and task interdependencies, and coordinate adjustments to broad and targeted searches within time and resource constraints. The introduced framework describes the process of adaptive team information seeking and can guide evaluations of systems designed to support adaptation in team situation assessment.

Source: Information Technology for Development

DOI: 10.1080/02681102.2025.2472078

Authors: Rob Grace, Feifei Pang, Aurélie Montarnal

Institutions: University of Cincinnati, IMT Mines Albi, Centre de Génie Industriel

Language: English

Topic: Team Dynamics and Performance

Subfield: Social Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Science Foundation

Award: FW-HTF-P: Transforming 911 dispatchers into Next-Generation 911 analysts: Sustainable innovation for training, workflow, and technology resources for NG911 emergency communications