WHAT’S WRONG WITH SAFETY TRAINING . . . AND HOW TO FIX IT

Now some of you are probably thinking, “yeah right, sounds good on paper, but those steps really can’t be applied in a Health and Safety training course. Okay, let’s say you’re teaching a course in “Right to Know” or “Hazard Communication” and you have written an objective something like this:

For our first step, introducing the topic you might say something like,”a Material Safety Data Sheet is a document that contains important information about the characteristics and actual or potential hazards of a substance.”

You might describe the reading a by saying “Material Safety Data Sheets are often referred to simply as an MSDS and they identify the manufacturer of the substance (with name, address, phone, and fax number). MSDS sheets typically include (1) chemical identity, (2) hazardous ingredients, (3) physical and chemical properties, (4) fire and explosion data, (5) reactivity data, (6) health hazards data, (7) exposure limits data, (8) precautions for safe storage and handling, (9) need for protective gear, and (10) spill control, cleanup, and disposal procedures. You need to be able to read and interpret an MSDS so you know what measures you will need to take to protect yourself from the hazards associated with working with the substance.”

A nice way to illustrate the importance of being able to read an MSDS is to pull a spray bottle half filled with iced tea and ask for a volunteer to drink it. When no one volunteers, ask the group why. The most likely responses will center around not knowing what the substance in the spray bottle is, or what potential harm it may do to someone who drinks it.

You can easily demonstrate the skill using an oversized MSDS as a visual aid. I recommend not using an overhead projection, just because I like to vary the media and methods to better hold the attention of the participants. Using the oversized MSDS you can read to MSDS to the class pointing out where each bit of information is located on the visual aid.

Using a second oversized MSDS you can then ask participants to answer questions about the substance that is described on the sheet and evaluate their responses. Once you are satisfied that each participant is able to demonstrate the skills to your satisfaction you have successfully achieved your instructional objective.

RULE 3: KEEP THE LEARNERS ENGAGED
Far too many safety courses focus on content and ignore delivery. Instructors drone on and on oblivious to a room full of participants who have completely checked out mentally. A good safety course should keep the learners engaged by employing some simple instructional methods.

Estimates of the average attention span of an adult American range between 10 and 15 minutes. That may seem hard to believe until you think about the way the brain works. Our brains take in information for about 30 seconds and then spend about a minute and a half processing the information. This cycle continues until the brain feels the stress of concentration and moves on to a new subject.

The times I use are purely to illustrate the dynamic, and the fact checker for this article should recognize that the veracity of the exact timing has the veracity of a poorly researched Wikipedia article or your average doom and gloom email warning.

Irrespective of the exact timing of this processing, if an instructor throws too much information at an individual too quickly, the brain simply can’t keep up and shuts down. Conversely, if the brain receives information too slowly, the mind tends to wander and seek out other input to process; a phenomenon is commonly called day dreaming.

There are ways with which you can hold people’s attention longer. First, vary your delivery methods. Many safety instructors have one delivery method: lecture. Lecture is very useful and widely used in traditional education and it certainly has a place in safety training, but it shouldn’t be the only method an instructor uses.

Lectures are popular among safety instructors because people tend to model the methods most familiar to them, and since most safety instructors sat through numerous lectures in college, they gravitate to this delivery method. A ten-minute lecture that introduces defines and explains a topic is an excellent way to provide the participants with a lot of information quickly, but then a good instructor should use another delivery method to illustrate the point.

I like to use question-and-answer or a group discussion to illustrate the skills I am trying to teach, but you might also consider a case study, a video, or a simulation exercise to illustrate. I prefer to save case studies and simulation exercises for the demonstration and practice steps of the instructional process.

A case study is typically an indepth examination of one specific situation that is representative of the circumstances under which the learners will apply the skill. A good case study should have a dilemma that the reader is asked to solve. When you write a case study, be sure you provide enough information so the participants can draw correct conclusions but don’t provide so much information that the solution to the problem is obvious.