Hazard Recognition Skills Research Articles

Using Eye-Tracking Technology to Assess the Effect of Daily Safety Training on Hazard Recognition Skills

Using Eye-Tracking Technology to Assess the Effect of Daily Safety Training on Hazard Recognition Skills

Reinvestigation of the Psychological Mechanisms of Construction Experience on Hazard Recognition Performance.

The study aimed to reinvestigate psychological mechanisms of the influence of construction workers' experience on hazard recognition performance, with signal detection theory (SDT) and electroencephalogram (EEG) readings. Existing evidence regarding the effect of experience on hazard recognition performance in the construction industry remains inconsistent. Behavior-wise, identification of dominant hazard recognition factors (sensitivity or response bias, or both) would help determine appropriate training strategies to improve hazard recognition. In terms of neuro-responses, induced gamma-band activity was expected to reflect the cognitive functions mediating the psychological effects of experience. Seventy-seven construction workers participated in a predesigned hazard recognition task, in which participants judged whether a hazard was present from a series of construction scenario pictures. We computed and compared the sensitivity and response bias of SDT and time-frequency representations of recorded EEG signals of the two experience-level groups. Novice workers had higher hazard recognition rates. Behavior-wise, novices were more sensitive than more experienced workers. Compared with experienced workers, novices showed stronger gamma-band difference power (hazardous minus safe) in the left frontal and right posterior parietal areas during the hazard recognition process. Novices performed better at hazard recognition, indicating their sensitivity to the hazards without a clear difference in response bias. Based on the EEG data, novices' sensitivity may be attributed to more efficient working memory and attentional control. There is a need for continuous refreshment of hazard recognition skills for experienced workers for safety interventions.

Process Safety Incident Prevention Project: An Initiative to Reduce Incidents across Dow Laboratories

The intrinsic nature of Research and Development (R&D) activities─the continuous use of new chemicals and development of cutting-edge, sustainable processes at a rapid pace─can increase the potential for Process Safety and Reactive Chemicals accidents. Industrial and academic laboratories have experienced several significant laboratory accidents and near misses. In an effort to decrease laboratory incidents, Dow, with a large global R&D presence, reviewed internal Root Cause Investigations which indicated that improvements were needed in chemical hazard recognition skills, chemical storage and handling, and inventory management. This paper presents a Dow initiative to address and combat such incidents through the charter of a multidisciplinary team composed of Reactive Chemicals, Process Safety, and Environment, Health, & Safety experts along with R&D researchers, who have collaborated to develop and deliver training modules which focus on high-interest safety topics. Module topics were chosen based on recurrence metrics and potential event severity. Modules provide laboratory personnel with basic topic knowledge, specific hazard awareness regarding the topic, and guidance on how to implement appropriate safeguards. The long-term objective is reducing the number and severity of incidents. Over two years, 10 modules have been delivered in various media; at least a quarter of global Dow R&D personnel have independently engaged with this training content, in addition to those directed to it by leaders, peers, safety experts, or training requirements. In addition to the development of enhanced training delivered via multiple platforms, the team has identified and recommended improvements or additions to existing safety management systems designed to identify hazards and control risk.

Improving firefighters hazard recognition with energy based hazard recognition training

Firefighting is dangerous work that includes assessing fire grounds to recognize hazardous conditions. Due to the high fatality rate and danger of the occupation, the industry is constantly striving to uncover knowledge to reduce the inherent risks of firefighting. To advance theory and application of hazard recognition in the fire service industry, a multiphase research project was conducted with the following objectives: 1) perform a two group pre-test/post-test design, 2) deliver energy based hazard recognition training as an intervention, 3) empirically measure improvement in hazard recognition performance, and 4) perform 3-month downstream assessments to evaluate retained knowledge of the treatment group. A total of 43 firefighters across Eastern North Carolina participated in the study. ANOVA analysis and t-test statistics were used to determine if the provision of energy based hazard recognition training affects firefighters hazard recognition performance. The ANOVA results show that there was a statistically significant 21.02% increase (p < 0.000) in firefighters hazard recognition skill between the pre-test and post-test of the treatment group. Additionally, t-test statistics verify stability in hazard recognition skills between the first round of post-test and a 3-month follow up second round post-test assessment. A between groups assessment of the control and treatment groups confirms the change in hazard recognition skill is attributed to the intervention and is limited to outside effects. This is the first known quasi-experimental test of a hazard recognition strategy within the fire service industry with appropriate controls that optimize validity and statistical rigor.

Developing hazard recognition skill among the next-generation of construction professionals

Globally, a large number of safety hazards remain unrecognised in construction workplaces. These unrecognised safety hazards are also likely to remain unmanaged and can potentially cascade into unexpected safety incidents. Therefore, the development of hazards recognition skill – particularly among the next-generation of construction professionals – is vital for injury prevention and safe work-operations. To foster the development of such skill, the current investigation examined the effect of administering a hazard recognition intervention to students seeking to enter the construction workforce. First, prior to introducing the intervention, the pre-intervention hazard recognition skill of the participating students was measured. Next, the intervention that included a number of programme elements was introduced. The programme elements included (1) visual cues to promote systematic hazard recognition, (2) personalised hazard recognition performance feedback, (3) visual demonstration of common hazard recognition search weaknesses, and (4) diagnosis of hazard search weaknesses using metacognitive prompts. Finally, the post-intervention skill demonstrated by the student participants was measured and compared against their pre-intervention performance. The results suggest that the intervention was effective in improving the hazard recognition skill demonstrated by the next-generation of construction professionals. The observed effect was particularly prominent among those that demonstrated relatively lower levels of skill in the pre-intervention phase. The research also unveiled particular impediments to hazards recognition that the participants experienced.

Hazard Recognition and Risk Perception Skills among Union Electricians

AbstractAlthough most safety guidelines and standards put hazard recognition as the first step of risk management, researchers found that only 6.7% of construction foremen could identify all the si...

Developing construction hazard recognition skill: leveraging safety climate and social network safety communication patterns

Poor hazard recognition skill is a widespread issue in the construction industry. Therefore, an understanding of factors that influence the development of hazard recognition skill among workers is fundamental to effective safety management. Based on social learning theory which suggests that individuals learn efficiently by observing, interacting, and emulating others in workplaces, the current article reports findings from a larger study that examined the effect of safety climate and social-network safety communication patterns on the hazard recognition skill demonstrated by workers. More specifically, building upon previously reported findings presented in Pandit et al. which suggests that maintaining a more positive safety climate can lead to superior hazard recognition levels, the current article presents additional results examining the effect of safety climate and social-network safety communication patterns—maintained by workers—on the demonstrated hazard recognition skill. The study involved recruiting construction crews from 57 projects in the United States where safety climate and social-network safety communication data were gathered using questionnaire surveys—which was then followed by a hazard recognition activity. The results suggest that, apart from the safety climate, social-network safety communication patterns are positively related to the demonstrated hazard recognition skill. In addition, evidence of an interaction effect was found—suggesting that establishing a positive safety climate and maintaining higher levels of safety communication can yield synergistic benefits.

Does the format of design information affect hazard recognition performance in construction hazard prevention through design reviews?

A series of simulated design for safety reviews with civil engineering students, construction and engineering designers, and construction supervisors were conducted across the United States to explore the effects that different formats of design information have on hazard recognition performance during construction hazard prevention through design (CHPtD) reviews. In total, 117 participants were provided one of three information formats including: two-dimensional (2D) computer aided design (CAD) drawings, three-dimensional (3D) computerized visualizations, and a combination of the two (2D & 3D). Participants were randomly assigned to treatment groups using blocked counterbalanced design. In the experiment, participants were asked to explore the design and identify as many safety hazards as possible for three separate construction work activities: rooftop skylight installation, interior soffit drywall installation, and interior metal wall stud framing. Mean and dispersion and ANOVA tests suggest that the format of design information did not have any significant effects on the hazard recognition skill during CHPtD reviews. These findings challenge the pervasive assumption that three-dimensional design information is superior to two-dimensional information in terms of safety planning. The primary theoretical contribution of this research lies in the exploration of how design information affects the ability of an individual to forecast and address construction dangers from different abstractions of the target facility. The practical implication of the findings is that the format of design information may be far less important than the experience of the professionals and the time they invest in searching for and correcting hazards.

Making construction safety training interesting: A field-based quasi-experiment to test the relationship between emotional arousal and situational interest among adult learners

Safety training within the construction industry is often quite mundane and generic which is a problem for an industry combatting with high fatality rates on job sites for decades. Recent studies have found construction safety training programs severely lacking in developing hazard recognition and risk assessment skills among its workforce. Moreover, techniques used in these training programs are not geared to help adult learners engage or retain information provided. To address these shortcomings, this paper tests the efficacy of a multimedia simulation-based training program: Naturalistic Injury Simulations (NIS) in inducing interest among construction workers. NIS has been empirically shown to elicit targeted negative emotional experience among construction workers and the work presented here tests if NIS can also generate situational interest in construction workers regarding safety. This paper collected data from 489 construction workers on a construction job-site in an interventional experimental design. Analysis revealed that NIS were able to increase situational interest among workers and that these findings were consistent across all demographic dimensions captured in our study. Multiple linear regression analysis did not show clear evidence of a relationship between change in emotions and increase in situational interest among workers. This work shows that NIS will promote learning among workers by keeping them interested in the safety training process while also generating risk-averse behavioral patterns through emotional manipulation.

Algorithm for quantitative analysis of close call events and personalized feedback in construction safety

Abstract In many of the developed countries about 15–25% of all fatal construction workplace accidents relate to a too close proximity of pedestrian workers to construction equipment or hazardous materials. Extracting knowledge from data on near hits (aka. close calls) might warrant better understanding on the root causes that lead to such incidents and eliminate them early in the risk mitigation process. While a close call is a subtle event where workers are in close proximity to a hazard, its frequency depends–among other factors–on poor site layout, a worker's willingness to take risks, limited safety education, and pure coincidence. For these reasons, pioneering organizations have recognized the potential of gathering and analyzing leading indicator data on close calls. However, mostly manual approaches are infrequently performed, subjective due to situational assessment, imprecise in level of detail, and importantly, reactive or inconsistent in effective or timely follow-ups by management. While existing predictive analytics research targets change at strategic levels in the hierarchy of organizations, personalized feedback to strengthen an individual worker's hazard recognition and avoidance skill set is yet missing. This study tackles the bottom of Heinrich's safety pyramid by providing an in-depth quantitative analysis of close calls. Modern positioning technology records trajectory data, whereas computational algorithms automatically generate previously unavailable details to close call events. The derived information is embedded in simplified geometric information models that users on a construction site can retrieve, easily understand, and adapt in existing preventative hazard recognition and control processes. Results from scientific and field experiments demonstrate that the developed system works successfully under the constraints of currently available positioning technology.

Emotional Engagement in Safety Training: Impact of Naturalistic Injury Simulations on the Emotional State of Construction Workers

AbstractPoor hazard recognition skills and high tolerance for risk are well-known contributing factors to high fatality rates plaguing the construction industry. The prevailing safety training tech...

Empirical measurement and improvement of hazard recognition skill

One explanation for high injury rates and the recent plateau in construction safety performance is that workers remain unable to recognize and manage hazards in dynamic and transient construction environments. This notion is supported by recent experimental studies, which revealed that workers are typically unable to identify and manage over 55% of hazards in their immediate work environment. These alarming discoveries prompted a series of multiple baseline experiments that tested three interventions thought to improve hazard recognition. In these studies, data were gathered from over 3000 h of field observations with 103 workers and hazard recognition performance was measured before and after each intervention was introduced. All three interventions caused improvement in overall hazard recognition performance; however, each intervention’s impact on the recognition of specific types of hazards was not evaluated. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by presenting and in-depth analysis of these data that: (1) elucidates micro-level hazard recognition across different hazard types and categories and (2) evaluates the hazard-specific impact of three recently developed interventions. The results reveal that gravity, motion, mechanical, and electrical hazards are associated with the highest baseline hazard recognition levels; whereas temperature, chemical, radiation, and biological hazards were the least recognized hazards in both the baseline and post-intervention phases. This suggests the need for targeted hazard recognition programs that focus on energy sources that are commonly missed.

Measuring and improving designer hazard recognition skill: Critical competency to enable prevention through design

The construction industry has long accounted for one of the highest injury and fatality rates of any single-service industry. Within the construction industry, a promising technique is construction hazard prevention through design (CHPtD). Logically, CHPtD is only effective to the extent that construction hazards have emerged and are recognizable during the design phase. The objectives of this study were to measure: (1) the extent that construction hazards are apparent or recognizable during design; (2) the hazard recognition skill of designers; and (3) the extent to which hazard recognition skill can be improved in design through training and mnemonics. A multi-phase experiment was designed to identify 12 representative construction modules; observe the construction of these modules and conduct interviews to determine hazards present; obtain the design documents for the modules observed; and assess the ability of 17 designers to identify the hazards using only design documents. The results of the experiment indicated that approximately 25% of all hazards are latent in design and, of those hazards that are patent, the average designer hazard recognition skill was 51%. Further, the hazard recognition skill of designers with construction field experience was, on average, 45% higher than designers with no construction field experience (p=0.02). Finally, a brief introduction to the Haddon energy mnemonic increased designer’s hazard recognition skill by an average of 27% (p=0.001). Future research is suggested to determine the potential impact of emerging technologies on hazard recognition skill including three-dimensional printing and virtual design and construction software.

Enhancing Construction Hazard Recognition with High-Fidelity Augmented Virtuality

AbstractMost construction safety management processes rely on the hazard recognition capability of workers. Hazards that remain unidentified can potentially result in catastrophic injuries and illnesses. As such, thorough hazard recognition is fundamentally essential to protect the health and well-being of the construction workforce. Despite its importance, recent research indicates that a large proportion of hazards remain unrecognized, exposing workers to unmitigated risks. Surprisingly, safety research has not adequately focused on developing specialized strategies to develop construction worker competency in hazard recognition. This paper reports a two-year research effort with the following objectives: (1) develop a high-fidelity augmented virtual environment [System for Augmented Virtuality Environment Safety (SAVES)] that helps develop workers’ hazard recognition skill through risk-free learning and immediate feedback; (2) embed cognitive retrieval mnemonics to improve long-term retention of cues f...

Revamping occupational safety and health training: Integrating andragogical principles for the adult learner

Despite attempts to improve safety performance, the construction industry continues to account for a disproportionate rate of injuries. A large proportion of these injuries occur because workers are unable to recognize and respond to hazards in dynamic and unpredictable environments. Unrecognized hazards expose workers to unanticipated risks and can lead to catastrophic accidents. In order to enhance hazard recognition skills, employers often put new and experienced workers through formal hazard recognition training programs. Unfortunately, current training programs primarily rely on instructor-centric pedagogical approaches, which are insensitive to the adult learning process. In order to ensure effective adult learning, training programs must integrate learner-centric andragogical principles to improve engagement and retention in adult trainees. This paper aims to discuss training program elements that can potentially accelerate the adult learning process while improving safety knowledge retention. To this end, the researchers reviewed relevant literature on the cognitive processes of adult learning, essential components of effectual training programs and developed a reliable framework for the training and transfer of safety knowledge. A case example of successfully using the framework is also presented. The results of the study will provide safety trainers and construction professionals with valuable information on developing effective hazard recognition and receptor training programs, with the goal of improving construction safety performance.

Enhancing Construction Hazard Recognition and Communication with Energy-Based Cognitive Mnemonics and Safety Meeting Maturity Model: Multiple Baseline Study

AbstractNearly every safety management activity is designed around the fundamental and implicit assumption that the workforce is capable of identifying hazards before exposure. Unfortunately, research shows preliminary evidence that construction crews perform relatively poorly with respect to hazard recognition. This may be attributable, in part, to the diverse and dynamic nature of construction work. Consequently, many hazards remain unidentified, uncontrolled, and unmanaged until they are encountered by workers. To advance theory and practice in the area of construction hazard recognition and communication, a large-scale, multiphase research project was conducted with the following objectives: (1) devise a new hazard recognition method based upon the principles of cognitive mnemonics and that promotes hazard recognition skill; (2) build a maturity model to improve hazard recognition performance and encourage hazard communication; and (3) experimentally measure improvement in hazard recognition and commu...

Bus accident severity and passenger injury: evidence from Denmark

Bus safety is a concern not only in developing countries, but also in the U.S. and Europe. In Denmark, disentangling risk factors that are positively or negatively related to bus accident severity and injury occurrence to bus passengers can contribute to promote safety as an essential principle of sustainable transit and advance the vision “every accident is one too many”. Bus accident data were retrieved from the national accident database for the period 2002–2011. A generalized ordered logit model allows analyzing bus accident severity and a logistic regression enables examining occurrence of injury to bus passengers. Bus accident severity is positively related to (i) the involvement of vulnerable road users, (ii) high speed limits, (iii) night hours, (iv) elderly drivers of the third party involved, and (v) bus drivers and other drivers crossing in yellow or red light. Occurrence of injury to bus passengers is positively related to (i) the involvement of heavy vehicles, (ii) crossing intersections in yellow or red light, (iii) open areas, (iv) high speed limits, and (v) slippery road surface. The findings of the current study provide a comprehensive picture of the bus safety situation in Denmark and suggest the necessity of further research into bus drivers’ attitudes and perceptions of risks and road users’ perceptions of bus operations. Moreover, these findings suggest the need for further training into bus drivers’ hazard recognition skills and infrastructural solutions to forgive possible driving errors.

Analysis of the Possibilities to Reduce Accidents of Inexperienced Drivers

Drivers generally tend to underestimate the risks involved with driving, and overestimate their driving skills and capabilities. Young drivers are especially at fault in that they have not been sensitized to the determinants of accident risks and are less able to judge what levels of risk are acceptable. A possible solution would be a change to the educational and training methodologies practiced in driving schools and training centers. Teaching focused on scanning and anticipating situations within a visual range and range of vision might help trainees reduce the risk of being involved in an accident. For example, trainees could be made aware of safe driving distances by the use of simulators. Higher attention could also be paid to the development of safe driving strategies, hazard recognition and higher order skills. 

The concept of degraded images applied to hazard recognition training in mining for reduction of lost-time injuries

Introduction: This paper discusses the application of a training intervention that uses degraded images for improving the hazard recognition skills of miners. Method: NIOSH researchers, in an extensive literature review, identified fundamental psychological principles on perception that may be employed to enhance the ability of miners to recognize and respond to hazards in their dangerous work environment. Three studies were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the degraded image training intervention. A model of hazard recognition was developed to guide the study. Results: In the first study, miners from Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Alabama, who were taught with the aid of degraded images, scored significantly better on follow-up hazard recognition performance measures than those trained using traditional instructional methodologies. The second and third studies investigated the effectiveness of the training intervention at two mining companies. Data collected over a 3-year period showed that lost-time injuries at mines in Alabama and Illinois declined soon after the training intervention was instituted. Impact on Industry: Further exploration of the hazard recognition model and the development of other interventions based on the model could support the validity of the steps in the hazard recognition model.