Utilization of Non-verbal Communication in the Engine Room Training – Basic Research on Hand Signals among Monocultural Crew on Board

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Accidents are likely to occur in an environment where work is done with teamwork by multiple crew members due to lack of communication, especially in a multicultural environment. Therefore, if there are internationally common maritime hand signals, it would contribute to reduction of human error among multicultural crews on board. As basic research on utilization of hand signals among multicultural crew on board, we invented several common hand signals. Furthermore, as a first step in an experiment to verify the effectiveness of hand signals during teamwork operation in engine room, we conducted the experiment in a mono-cultural environment through onboard training on a training ship. Our target task was practical onboard training for main engine start-up procedure in engine room because it required a lot of multitasking and teamwork. We studied the effectiveness and improvement of use of hand signals through questionnaires and interviews conducted with cadets and onboard instructors.