Construction safety training via e-Learning: Learning effectiveness and user satisfaction
Introduction
Constant technological improvement and innovation have increased the incidence of occupational injury from using new technologies and chemicals. Domestic safety health education helps to protect labor occupational safety health and prevent business disaster by avoiding property loss caused by occupational disasters, carry out related occupation education and training to enhance labor skill and advance operation safety. Knowledge of “Labor Safety” is essential. Labor safety related to life and work right. In order not to cause the loss of human resources and maintain the economic development, labor safety education training and learning effectiveness become important issues. According to 2007 statistics reported by the Council of Labor Affairs, Executive Yuan, 29 317 workers died in occupational disasters. Three worker injuries or deaths occurred every hour. The direct and indirect economic losses are difficult to estimate. Hence, avoiding occupational disasters requires intensive study and effort.
In addition to the “Labor Safety and Health Act” and its sub-act, “Administration of Labor Safety and Health Act”, labor safety-related legislation in Taiwan includes the “Labor Safety and Health Facility Rule”, “Labor Check Method” and ”Occupational Accident Labor Protection Act”. This legislation is intended to reduce occupational injuries by requiring workers to undergo safety education and training. According to statistical data released by the Council of Labor Affairs, Executive Yuan, safety education training was instrumental in reducing the rate of accidents per thousand workers from 4.12 in 2001–3.61 in 2008, a reduction of 14.568%. During the same period, the rate of injuries per thousand workers dropped from 3.76 to 3.18. These data confirm the effectiveness of labor safety education and training.
Developed countries, including US, EU, Japan, and Taiwan have recently begun promoting e-learning. To reduce the costs of educational training, enterprises have also started to aggressively introduce on-line education training via Internet. Given the huge demand for e-learning programs, domestic academic units and large enterprises have begun establishing e-learning platforms and are gradually acquiring related expertise (Levy, 2007). Unlike the construction industry, some enterprises have attempted to deliver safety education training via e-learning mode. However, few studies have investigated learning effectiveness or have performed cost analyses of e-learning environments and be focused on how to promote safety knowledge and implement it (Jackson and Loomis, 2002, Suraji and Stephen, 2001). Thus, there are few researches about safety education and e-learning in construction industry. This study investigates the effectiveness of e-learning and conventional learning in delivering construction safety education training. The objective of the study was to test the efficacy of digitizing safety education training programs in construction operations. The satisfaction and effectiveness evaluation during e-learning were investigated via the current conditions of e-learning and questionnaires. Moreover, references investigated to construct the research architectures and problems. The methods in this study (i.e., descriptive statistics, factor analysis, reliability analysis, canonical correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis) can be used to investigate e-learning effectiveness and to upgrade learning applications in order to improve the effectiveness of safety education training. Thus, the specific goals of the study were as follows:
- (1)
Analyze the current conditions of construction safety education training, and to identify factors that may affect e-learning effectiveness.
- (2)
Investigate the impact of “Teaching Material Design” and “Platform Function” on e-learning effectiveness.
- (3)
To concretely analyze and verify learning effectiveness via questionnaires for reference when developing e-learning courses in construction safety education.
Section snippets
Construction occupational safety
According to 2006 statistical data from the Council of Labor Affairs, Executive Yuan, the three major causes of occupational disasters are climate factors (including earthquakes, storms and typhoons), safety environment and behavior. The data indicated that 67.82% of all workers who are injured each year do not receive labor safety education training. Labor safety education training substantially improves safety and reduces loss of life. Construction laborers tend to suffer the most serious
Research methods and design
This study tested the effectiveness of e-learning for delivering construction safety education training and how to assess its effectiveness. Holcomb (1993) proposed seven methods of assessing learning effectiveness, including interview, test, questionnaire, observation, document analysis, scenario analysis and action plan etc. Therefore, this paper employed interview, test, questionnaire, observation, and document analysis to investigate learning effectiveness. A two-stage materials analysis
Preliminary materials assessment
The content analysis method has numerous applications. Numerous materials can be analyzed and explained systematically and statistically. Kerlinger (1985) described content analysis as a systematic, objective, and quantitative research method, its purpose is to measure examine the parameters upon propagating. Weber and Specht, (1997) also argued that “the content analysis method is a research methodology, namely a group of procedure to make effective inference for document content.” The content
Discussion
This study employed canonical correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis to verify the mutual relationships among platform function, content design and learning effectiveness. Factor analysis of the platform function and content design aspects of the questionnaire indicated that the key factors in learning effectiveness are network quality, platform operation, user interface, and test after course of platform function; animation design, case teaching, simulation test, and materials
Conclusions
The purpose of this research is mainly to discuss the e-learning effectiveness for the introduction of construction safety education. Analysis of the questionnaire results indicated that suitable education training mode and suitable training course content can reinforce the safe behavior of labor operation, no matter the age, education degree and information accomplishment of labor. Given the current technological environment and the time and cost of construction safety education and training,
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