NAVIGATION SKILLS
ASSESSMENT PROGRAM (NSAP)®

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Home : About the NSAP® : Reviewed by Leading Experts

REVIEWED BY LEADING EXPERTS

UCLA National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) : “Overall, the assessment that MITAGS West Coast Campus has developed for their NSAP® was observed to be sound and well designed to the performance skills of interest. Specifically, their group of subject matter experts possess an extraordinary wealth of practical ship piloting knowledge and experience, and were able to craft a well-designed exercise that incorporates more than 20 plausible, challenging, and in some cases, unexpected event scenarios to serve as measures for their assessment.” Evaluated by Alan Koenix, PhD, Markus Iseli, PhD

Progeny Systems Corporation : “Development of the Navigation Skills Assessment Program (NSAP)® required the application of psychometric principles and procedures as specified by Progeny Systems Corporation (PSC) , which were in accordance with technical, professional, and legal standards. Reliable and valid assessment policies ensure that the performance assessments of deck officers in the NSAP® program are based on job-related criteria as defined by work analysis led by Dr. Hertz (Applied Psychologist at PSC) who is trained as an industrial-organizational psychologist.”

Boeing: Dr. Barbara Holder, the lead cognitive scientist conducting research and development on training and assessment at Boeing, reviewed the NSAP®. The program was discussed at length, and Dr. Holder believes that MITAGS’s simulation development team is creating effective training and evaluation for mariners at all levels. Dr. Holder also indicated that the scenario-based testing that is currently being implemented by MITAGS is in line with what Boeing, is hoping to do in the future, in addition to their event-based simulations. This is a global aviation trend that is widely supported by the industry as the way forward. The collaboration between MITAGS and Boeing, is an exciting step toward providing both industries with fresh ideas and more effective tools for training and evaluation.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

“I have recently been assessed at MITAGS through their the Navigation Skills Assessment Program (NSAP)®.  The NSAP® was by far the best and most enjoyable maritime educational challenge of my career. I literally can’t wait to do it again. It made me realize the $20K in courses and all the time spent in obtaining my 1600 Ton Oceans was worth it.  The program not only showed me where I need to focus my attention on, it highlighted my skills and strengths.”

-Dan Schweitzer

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

“The NSAP® was a very effective way to accomplish both objectives and provided a valuable tool to identify opportunities for improvement both on an individual and fleet-wide level. It brought broad issues to the surface quickly like overreliance on ECDIS and lack of effective COLREGS application. Of further note is a definite cultural shift after the officers went through the NSAP® process: Captains were taking lessons learned back to their vessels to raise the level of watchstanding by mates.”

-Captain Scott Craig, Director, Marine Development and Compliance, Crowley Marine Services

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

“I’m highly impressed with the work you are doing and the way you go about developing the NSAP® product. I also enjoyed meeting and spending time with the MITAGS Leadership Team, an impressive group of people. And last but not least, it was personally very gratifying to see the Cockpit Resource Management principles we developed at NASA during the 70s and 80s translated so effectively into the marine environment.”

-Dr. John Lauber, former Chief of the Aeronautical Human Factors, Research Office of NASA

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

“Overall, the assessment MITAGS West Coast campus has developed for their NSAP® was observed to be sound and well aligned to the performance skills of interest. Specifically, their group of subject matter experts possess an extraordinary wealth of practical ship piloting knowledge and experience, and were able to craft a well-designed exercise that incorporates more than 20 plausible, challenging, and in some cases, unexpected event scenarios to serve as measures for their assessment.”

-Alan Koenig PhD, Markus Iseli, PhD UCLA National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

“The assessment process including the simulation scenarios are scientifically engineered to uncover the true and actual level of competency of a navigating officer giving ship owners/ship managers a vivid picture of risk areas that will need to be mitigated. It provides highly valuable input equal to if not more than what can be gathered from professional/technical interviews, simulation training, workplace (on the job) assessment and performance appraisal combined.”

-Captain Terence Uytingban, General Manager, UltraShip Crewing Phils., Inc.

PRESENTED WORLDWIDE

As a result of global demand for an objective tool in risk mitigation, MITAGS has implemented the NSAP® at various International Training Centers (ITC) throughout the world.

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