This review paper looked at available evidence and sought to discuss the following questions:
- how skilled are craft workers at identifying hazards,
- what hazards are most commonly identified and missed,
- what is happening in the brain as different types of hazards are recognized,
- and what types of techniques have been demonstrated to improve hazard recognition.
Results:
Despite the extensive use of JSAs within construction, authors note that a major concern is a “ simple but fatal assumption that the individuals involved in the process given the context are capable in identifying most hazards in the work-environment” (p60).
They cite research indicating that safety professionals, designers and construction workers display “a very poor hazard recognition performance” (p60), with some work suggesting that construction workers across the US, UK, Israel & Australia may only, at best, identify only half of workplace hazards in their environment.
In exploring the reasons for hazard underrecognition, some work using fMRI found that the severity of hazards is correlated to cognitive activation, where lower severity hazards require relatively more response time from people for identification, which “could translate on site to slower reflexes or worse, simply failing to detect the low-severity hazards” (p60).
Also discussed is the increased cognitive efforts to identify hazards containing energy types unfamiliar to workers – citing examples that it’s harder for some workers to identify mechanical energy sources (rotating or vibrating parts) vs gravitational or electrical. Elaborating here, one study employing 3,000 hours of field observations found that construction workers may lack cognitive skills to identify certain types of hazards.
Looking at safety training – authors argue that an implicit assumption of traditional training is that workers can automatically identify most site hazards – which may not be accurate, and that this training may not appropriately leverage adult learning principles or social antecedents for positive learning experiences.
It’s stated that adults participate in learning only if they perceive direct value to their personal or professional life & this was confirmed with construction workers, where they will follow rules more consistently when they have personal incentive to be involved in the process.
Human factors & management factor training was found to improve transfer of knowledge.
Other work demonstrated the validity of using a hazard energy mnemonic technique to help improve construction worker hazard recognition. It was found to help improve hazard recognition by 30%. They note that using cognitive cues appears to be a reliable, flexible & cost-effective strategy for any safety training program.
Highlighting some benefits of virtual training environments, some work indicated improvements of 30% hazard recognition. Although further validation research is necessary, they note that risk-free virtual training may be the best current substitution for simulating potentially hazardous real-life environments.
Authors also highlight links between safety climate and improved hazard recognition performance. They state although the causal direction between the relationship is unknown, it appears that improving SC can increase engagement levels during training and therefore enhance safety outcomes.
Overall, authors argue that although many limitations exist in traditional safety training programs – little work exists in trying to overhaul or improve them. Furthermore, the limitations seem to be rarely discussed or recognised and that neglecting the flaws “in the existing training procedures makes safety systems vulnerable to failures” (p60).
That is, existing strategies often rely on an assumption that workers will be able to recognise the hazards in their environment and “incorrectly assume that they only require cues to heighten awareness” (p60).
Furthermore on this point, existing training programs are said to be based primarily on child-focused pedagogy, which partially explain why training programs are ineffective in communicating critical safety-related information.
SafetyInsights.org 