The mediating effect of workers’ situation awareness on the relationship between work-related factors and human error: a path analysis approach

Abstract

Situation awareness is the main reason behind different patterns of unsafe behavior among workers and can play a mediating role in the relationship between predictive situational variables and human error. This questionnaire-based study carried out with Iranian workers investigated the direct and indirect effects of work pressure, mental workload, human–systems interaction and environmental distractions on three types of human error (i.e., slips, lapses and mistakes). The results of path analysis showed that, based on model fit indexes, the model is appropriately fit (χ 2 / df = 3, comparative fit index = 099, Tucker–Lewis index = 0.99, root mean square error of approximation = 026). It was also observed that the effects of four independent variables on all three types of human error are indirect and mediated by situation awareness. Consequently, it is confirmed that situation awareness plays a key role in the occurrence of human error and is a sharp-end causal factor for human error in industrial workplaces.