Collaborative Research: Experiential Process Safety Training for Chemical Engineers

过程安全被认为是化学工程教育的重要组成部分。然而，仅在课堂环境下的教学过程安全使学生很难掌握影响他们在真实世界场景中做出决策的背景因素。现实生活中的化学加工环境很难在教室里实现，在实际设施中也有潜在的危险。基于计算机的模拟是教授困难和抽象内容的有益工具，因为它们能够让学习者沉浸在环境中，提供目标，支持他们的学习体验，并提供即时反馈，允许学生从失败中吸取教训。建议的方法使用数字环境，允许学生扮演化工厂员工的角色。在这种学习环境中，学生将有机会亲身体验在工业环境中工作的安全挑战和经常出现的困难决策场景。虚拟环境提供了安全的条件，为学生提供了真实世界的体验，而不会因为现实生活中可能发生的错误决定而产生灾难性的后果。与专业游戏设计公司合作，化学过程安全模拟将在三个化学工程项目中实施。在初步咨询后，将产生一份设计文档，其中指定了模拟规则和交互的细节，描述了玩家的体验以及玩家的动作如何与学习活动相关联。关于学生学习过程安全的动机、做出正确安全决策的能力的变化以及安全决策中的文化差异，将调查三个适当的研究问题。将应用定量方法来确定过程安全模拟对学生的影响，此外，还将对学生对过程安全工具中的过程安全决策提示的反应进行专题分析，以进一步了解学生在审查所提供的情景时所采取的方法。

Process safety is regarded as a critical part of chemical engineering education. However, teaching process safety only in a classroom setting makes it difficult for students to grasp contextual factors that impact decisions they may make in a real-world scenario. Real life chemical processing environments are difficult to achieve in the classroom and potentially dangerous in an actual facility. Computer-based simulations are beneficial tools for teaching difficult and abstract content due to their ability to immerse the learner within the environment, provide goals, support their learning experience, and provide immediate feedback that allows learning lessons from failure. The proposed approach uses a digital environment that allows students to role-play as chemical plant employees. In this learning environment, students will be given the opportunity to experience first-hand the safety challenges of working in an industrial environment and the difficult decision-making scenarios that often arise. The virtual environment offers conditions that are safe, providing students with real-world experiences without the disastrous consequences of wrong decisions that could occur in real life. Working with a professional game design company, the chemical process safety simulations will be implemented in three chemical engineering programs. Following initial consultations, a design document will be produced that specifies details of the simulation's rules and interactions, describing the player's experience and how the player's actions correlate to learning activities. Three appropriate research questions will be investigated regarding student motivation to learn about process safety, changes in ability to make correct safety decisions and cultural differences in safety decision making. Quantitative methods will be applied to determine how the process safety simulation influenced students, in addition, thematic analysis of student reflections on their responses to the process safety decision making prompts within the process safety instrument will be undertaken to further understand the approach students took when examining the scenarios provided.