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！

• 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

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.

化工厂的爆炸和火灾经常成为头条新闻，因为它对工人的健康和安全、环境和当地社区产生了深远的影响。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断的结果。研究人员已经证实，人们相信自己会做出决定的方式，往往与他们实际的行为方式不一样。我们认为，无法反思信念和行为之间的任何差距，是做出正确判断的障碍。因此，至关重要的是，工程师要意识到他们的信念和行为之间可能存在的任何差距，以实现反思和安全的判断。在这个研究项目中，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学生和工程师的信念和行为。由于与过程安全相关的判断很难在课堂上建模，并且在实际设施中存在潜在危险，因此我们将使用基于游戏的模拟，允许个人扮演高级工厂工程师的角色。数字环境使个人能够亲身体验工业环境中出现的安全挑战，同时在做出这些判断时既安全又防止了现实生活中可能发生的灾难性后果。然后，参与者将了解他们认为自己的行为与他们的行为之间的关系，这是为了提高对过程安全判断的复杂性的认识。该研究将通过访谈、书面反思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)参与者认为他们如何做出判断？2)他们在实际做出判断时是如何表现的？3)他们的信念和行为之间存在什么差距（如果有的话），4)参与者如何调和这些差距？我们的研究设计从多个数据点捕捉信念，使我们能够理解1)游戏玩法的有效性，以及2)展示信念与行为之间关系的个性化档案。我们描述信念和行为之间差距的方法，并将这些信息呈现给工程师，使他们能够意识到并进行反思，这种方法有两个潜在的影响。首先，它具有以下潜力：1)可以在不同的环境中进行转移，从而广泛地提高专业判断能力；2)根据参与者（包括工程专业学生和在过程安全环境中工作的工程师），对上述两种不同干预措施的有效性提出具体建议。该项目产生的知识不仅有利于寻求进一步研究信念与行为之间关系的学者，也有利于负责培养学生进行反思判断能力的工程教育工作者，特别是在过程安全背景下。最后，这项工作的结果有可能通过为劳动力发展提供信息来促进实践工程师的专业形成。这种反思过程使人们意识到信念和行为之间的差距，是一种非常规但有前途的方法，最终可以减少过程安全事故。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Criteria Conundrum: Engineering Students’ Beliefs about the Role of Competing Criteria in Process Safety Judgements

标准难题：工科学生对竞争标准在过程安全判断中的作用的看法

• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: ASEE annual conference exposition proceedings
• 作者: Ritz, C.;Stransky, J.;Bodnar, C.A.;Dringenberg, E.;Miskioglu, E.
• 通讯作者: Miskioglu, E.

MIND THE GAP! ...between engineers’ process safety beliefs and behaviors

注意间隔！

• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: ASEE annual conference exposition proceedings
• 作者: Stransky, J.;Ritz, C.;Bodnar, C.A.;Dringenberg, E;Miskioglu, E.
• 通讯作者: Miskioglu, E.

Board 419: Students use their Lived Experiences to Justify their Beliefs about How they Will Approach Process Safety Judgment

Board 419：学生利用他们的生活经验来证明他们对如何进行过程安全判断的信念

• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: ASEE annual conference exposition proceedings
• 作者: Stransky, J.;Ritz, C.;Bodnar, C.A.;Dringenberg, E.;Miskioglu, E.
• 通讯作者: Miskioglu, E.