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The Role of Worker Participation in Effective Training

S INCE 1983, THE HAZARD COMMUNICATION Standard promulgated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has required employers to communicate with workers about the hazards of chemicals in their workplaces, and how to reduce such hazards through use of personal protective equipment, safe work practices and engineering controls. (1-2) Although such training is federally mandated and considered essential to any preventive approach to health and safety, few studies have evaluated the relative efficacy of worker training techniques. The majority of studies examine the impact of a particular typeof training on one group of workers. For example, several studies have evaluated the effect of training and positive reinforcement on workers. (3-5) Other studies have reviewed the impact of participatory teaching techniques. (6-8) The studies found that employee training, regardless of technique, improves workers' knowledge of hazards and use of safe work practices. (3-8) While there is an absence of studies comparing the efficacy of different worker training techniques, there have been several studies of non-worker student populations. These studies found that students, particularly adult students, learn better through interactional and participatory methods than through passive methods such as lectures. (9-12) Educational researchers have examined the effects of several participatory learning techniques on non-worker students. One method for interactional teaching promotes trainee participation by eliciting information from students through questions and group discussion. (13-15) Another method for increasing student participation involves use of the small-group exercises with students working cooperatively on a problem. Small-group activities have been used extensively in health education, including medical education. (7, 16-19) The concept is based on the theory that people learn more by doing than by listening. (7,16-19) These participatory principles have also guided many health and safety educators, particularly those educators teaching from the worker or labor perspective. (20) This study examined the comparative impact on workers of three different teaching methods: 1. a lecture method, 2. an interactive method with some worker participation; and 3. a peer teaching method using shopfloor trainers, small-group exercises and risk mapping. Risk mapping is a participatory technique in which workers collectively draw a map of their workplace and the health and safety hazards which affect them. The training consisted of identifying hazards and controls associated with spray-painting operations at a facility which manufactures aircraft parts. The work setting was several spray booths and areas where paints were mixed and spray apparatus cleaned. Each training group received the same information about a new chromatebased paint, using one of the three training methods. The three groups were evaluated based on the degree to which their knowledge and work practices concerning the chromate-based paint improved following training.