Collaborative Research: Research: RUI: Engineers making process safety judgements...Mind the Gap! Beliefs vs. behavior

合作研究：研究：RUI：工程师做出过程安全判断...注意差距！

基本信息

批准号：
2113845
负责人：
Emily Dringenberg
金额：
$ 9.21万
依托单位：
Ohio State University
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2021
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2021-09-01 至 2025-08-31
项目状态：
未结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2113845&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Collaborative Research RUI Engineers making

项目摘要

Chemical plant explosions and fires often make headlines due to the far-reaching implications for the health and safety of workers, the environment, and the local community. Investigations into these incidents have found that they are typically the result of a series of judgements that are made by company personnel (including engineers) over a significant period of time. Researchers have established that how individuals believe they will make decisions is often not the same as how they actually behave, and we posit that an inability to reflect on any gap between beliefs and behaviors is a barrier to sound judgements. Therefore, it is critical that engineers gain awareness of any gap that may exist between their beliefs and behavior to enable reflective and safe judgements. In this research project, we will investigate and compare the beliefs and behaviors of both senior chemical engineering students and engineers working in process safety contexts. As judgements related to process safety would be difficult to model in the classroom and potentially dangerous within an actual facility, we will use a game-based simulation that allows individuals to role-play as a senior plant engineer. The digital environment allows individuals to experience first-hand the safety challenges that arise in an industrial environment while being safe and preventing the disastrous outcomes that could occur in a real life setting when making these judgements. Participants will then learn about the relationship between how they believed they would behave and how they behaved, which is intended to enable awareness of the complexity of process safety judgements.The research study will leverage both quantitative and qualitative methods through interviews, written reflections, and immersive game-play to answer the following four research questions: 1) What do participants believe about how they approach making judgements? 2) How do they behave when actually making judgements? 3) What gap, if any, exists between their beliefs and behavior, and 4) How do participants reconcile any gap? Our research design captures beliefs at multiple data points over time enabling us to generate an understanding of the efficacy of both 1) the game play, and 2) exposure to an individualized profile demonstrating the relationship between beliefs and behaviors. Our method for characterizing the gap between beliefs and behaviors and presenting that information to engineers to enable awareness and reflection has two potential impacts. First, it has the potential 1) to be transferable across diverse contexts with implications for improving professional judgement widely, and 2) to make specific recommendations for the efficacy of the aforementioned two distinct interventions based on participants who include engineering students and engineers working in process safety contexts. The knowledge produced by this project can benefit not only scholars seeking to further study the relationship between beliefs and behaviors, but also engineering educators responsible for the professional formation of their students’ ability to exercise reflective judgement, especially in process safety contexts. Finally, the outcomes of this work have the potential to contribute to the professional formation of practicing engineers by informing workforce development. This reflective process, which brings awareness to gaps between beliefs and behaviors, is an unconventional yet promising approach to ultimately reducing process safety incidents.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

化学厂的爆炸和火灾通常是由于对工人，环境和当地社区的健康和安全的影响而成为头条新闻。对这些事件的调查发现，它们通常是公司人员（包括工程师）在很长一段时间内做出的一系列判决的结果。研究人员已经确定，个人相信自己将做出决定通常与他们的实际行为方式不同，我们指出，无法反思信念和行为之间的任何差距是声音判断的障碍。因此，至关重要的是，工程师要认识到他们的信念和行为之间可能存在的任何差距，以实现反思性和安全的判断。在该研究项目中，我们将调查和比较在过程安全环境中工作的高级化学工程专业学生和工程师的信念和行为。由于与流程安全有关的判断将很难在课堂上建模，并且在实际设施中可能很危险，因此我们将使用基于游戏的模拟，使个人可以作为高级工厂工程师角色扮演角色。数字环境使个人能够亲身体验在安全环境中出现的安全挑战，同时又是安全的，并防止在做这些法官时可能在现实生活中发生的灾难结果。然后，参与者将了解他们认为自己的行为与表现方式之间的关系，这旨在使人们对过程安全判断的复杂性的认识。该研究将通过访谈，书面思考和沉浸式游戏来利用定量和定性方法来回答以下四个研究问题：1）参与者如何使他们对判断的方式进行回答：1） 2）他们在实际做出判断时如何表现？ 3）他们的信念和行为之间存在什么差距，以及4）参与者如何调和任何差距？我们的研究设计捕获了随着时间的推移的多个数据点的信念，使我们能够对游戏的效率产生了解1）游戏的效率，以及2）暴露于个性化的概况，以证明信念与行为之间的关系。我们表征信念和行为之间差距，并向工程师提出这些信息以使意识和反思具有两种潜在影响的方法。首先，它具有潜力1）在潜水员环境中的转移，对改善专业判断的意义，以及2）为基于包括工程学生和工程师在过程安全环境中工作的参与者的大约两种不同干预措施提出具体建议。该项目产生的知识不仅可以使寻求进一步研究信念与行为之间的关系的学者受益，而且还可以使他们的工程教育者负责负责学生的专业形成其学生行使反思性判断的能力，尤其是在过程安全环境中。最后，这项工作的结果有可能通过告知劳动力发展，从而为实践工程师的专业形成做出贡献。这种反思过程使人们意识到信念和行为之间的差距，是一种最终降低过程安全事件的非常规但有望的方法。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的审查标准通过评估来获得的支持。