According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), obtaining an airline pilot’s license requires comprehensive knowledge in technical and theoretical areas such as physics and mathematics, as well as practical skills in decision making, resource management and problem solving. These competencies are essential to ensure safe and effective performance in complex operational situations [1].

In recent years, some first-year students in a Bachelor’s degree in Commercial Aviation Pilot and Air Operations have been observed to face difficulties in solving STEM problems, especially those that are contextualized, that require the application of concepts in real situations. Students tend to fail more in these problems than in abstract problems, suggesting that there may be deficiencies in key cognitive skills such as reading comprehension with co-morbidity in attention problems, key aspects for assimilating technical information and applying the concepts learned.

This study aims to analyze the relationship between reading comprehension skills (inferential and critical) and sustained attention in students' ability to solve STEM problems contextualized in mathematics and physics subjects. The aim is to determine whether the lack of sustained attention and difficulties in reading comprehension influence the poor performance in these subjects, especially in solving problems contextualized in the evaluation activities, that require a greater cognitive effort to apply knowledge in practical contexts.

The sample consists of 34 students from different regions of Spain, of both sexes, aged between 17 and 22. The independent variables are reading comprehension in mother tongue, assessed by the validated ECOMPLEC.Sec questionnaire [2], and sustained attention measured by the validated d2-R questionnaire [3], used in the psychological assessment for obtaining the C1 medical certificate required by AESA (Agencia Estatal de Seguridad Aérea) for the exercise of the pilot profession. The dependent variables are academic performance and ability to solve STEM problems, both in a contextual and abstract format.

The results will be analyzed by comparing students' responses to contextualized problems in aviation and abstract problems, and qualitative insights on how these factors affect problem solving will be collected. This mixed research provides evidence on the importance of improving key cognitive skills, such as critical text comprehension and attention, not only in technical-scientific subjects but also as part of the integral development of future pilots.

References:
[1] International Civil Aviation Organisation. (2013). Manual of evidence-based training (Nr. 9995). Montreal, Canada: ICAO.
[2] León, J.A., Escudero, I., & Olmos, R. (2012). ECOMPLEC. Evaluación de la comprensión lectora [ECOMPLEC. Reading Comprehension Assessment]. Madrid: TEA Ediciones.
[3] Brickenkamp, Rolf, Lothar Schmidt-Atzert, and Detlev Liepmann. Test d2-Revision: Aufmerksamkeits-und Konzentrationstest. Vol. 1. Göttingen: Hogrefe, 2010.

Keywords: STEM problem solving, aviation, reading comprehension, sustained attention.