This Professional Development Workshop (PDW) will provide attendees with the foundational knowledge and skills required to apply cognitive task analysis methods in their research. Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) is a series of qualitative methods that can enhance the elicitation of expert knowledge across diverse organizational contexts, particularly through semi-structured interview techniques (Brown, Power, Gore, 2024). The PDW will be ideal for researchers seeking to enhance their cognitive interview skills, as well as for educators teaching interview-based research methods. During the workshop, facilitators will share decades of combined experience in applying CTA to document and analyze professional work in various organizational settings (e.g., finance, emergency response, leadership). Participants will learn about the historical development of CTA, including its theoretical origins grounded in the work of Flanagan (1954), and the Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM) community. Next, scholars will receive a step-by-step guide to conducting two of the most widely used CTA methods - the Critical Decision Method (CDM) and Applied CTA (ACTA). The workshop will emphasize how CTA methods offer both practical value for practitioners and theoretical rigor for researchers. Participants will end the workshop with the knowledge required to explore the use of these methods in their own research.
