Development And Application Of The Measuring Scale On Safety Culture Of Seafarers In Maritime Shipping Industry In A City Of China

Safety at sea is a serious issue for shipping industry,which is considered as one of the world’s most dangerous industries. China has a number of 570 thousand people involved in the industry till the end of 2013,of which the number has been going through in a rapid increase. That could give rise to big problems without enough attention to their safety.This research is focused on the seafarers in maritime shipping industry,and the seafarer who works on the container ships,bulk carriers at an ocean transportation company are included for object of the study. A measuring scale on safety culture of seafarers in maritime shipping industry was developed after the structure and content review of a number of relative measures of safety culture in shipping,and the reliability and the validity of the questionnaire were tested and verified in the next prevalence study,then the comparison of different demographic characteristics of seafarers group for safety culture awareness was given. At last,the need for safety training and the safety knowledge of the seafarers were learned.Objective:(1)To develop a measuring scale on safety culture of seafarers in maritime shipping industry in China based on reviewing the structure and content of a number older relative measures of safety culture,especially for the marine groups.(2)To compare the safety culture awareness of different demographic characteristics of seafarers and build a preliminary understanding of their safety attitudes,perceptions and values.(3)To investigate the need for safety training and the safety knowledge of the maritime seafarers. Generally speaking,through this research,some useful thoughts will provided for the future work on developing the measurement scale of the seafarer’s safety culture,and it will also lay the foundation for the study on the safety culture subjects among the broader shipping groups,as well as providing inspirations for follow-up organization culture research of specific groups of people;and on the other hand,the situation of the seafarer’s safety culture will be known from this research,which will give so many helpful suggestions to the management group of the shipping industry to take targeted actions so that the safety culture among seafarers can be improved,and accidents rate could be reduced,which help the improvement of relative groups,and might even eventually have a positive impact onChinese marine economy.Methods:(1)Questionnaire design From March to June in 2013,the first English version of measuring scale on safety culture of seafarers in maritime shipping industry in China was developed based on reviewing the structure and content of a number relative measures of safety culture,especially for the marine groups. After translating it to a Chinese version,Delphi method was used to revise and improve the measuring scale. Then the part of demographic data such as age,position,education and the part of the issues that focused on investigating the seafarer’s need for safety training and their basic safety knowledge mastery condition were developed. What the final questionnaire included are as follows: ①The basic information: such as age、position、years of working、positon,et al.②The part of investigating the seafarer’s need for safety training and their basic safety knowledge mastery condition ③Measuring scale on safety culture of seafarers in maritime shipping industry(37-Items).(2)Pilot survey 50 seafarers have been chosen from the shipping company for the pre-survey from January to Febuary in 2014 when the containers/bulks parked in the harbor, and the preliminary questionnaire designed was used to further enhance the questionnaire’s execution,and some items would be modified and deleted to meet the understanding and the working condition of the seafarers.(3)Inventory survey 400 seafarers have been chosen from the shipping company for the inventory survey from April to May of 2014 in the shipping company by the method of convenience sampling,and the work of data arranging was done through the Epidata tool,incomplete questionnaires or those including unintelligible or illegible answers were categorized as ineffective responses. Then the SPSS20.0 was used to analysis the data,the reliability and validity of the questionnaire was verified by the method of items analysis、EFA、correlation analysis and Internal consistency test,the result of the content validity was from the Delphi method that had been done. ANOVA and T-test were adopted to compare the safety culture awareness of different demographic characteristics of seafarers,and multiple linear regression was used to find out the demographic factors that influence the cognitive condition of safety culture.Results:(1)Through the pilot survey,2 items were deleted in the measurement scale.And in the inventory survey,a total of 400 questionnaires were collected and the total response rate was 100%,but 94.5% of them were effective.34 items were remained after the EFA,and 4 key safety culture dimensions or factors emerged,they accounted for approximately 66.01% of the total variance,the 4 factors are named as follows: Safety attitude、Safety policy、Safety knowledge and Safety management. And the 34 items were significant correlation with their dimensions and the whole scale at the 0.01 level. Referring to the content validity of the scale,the I-CVI of all the 34 items were equal or greater than 0.8 and the S-CVI/Ave were greater than 0.95,which indicated both the items and the scale had a perfect content validity. The Cronbach’s alpha for the 4 dimensions and the whole scale ranged from 0.828 to 0.969,the Spearman-Brown coefficient ranged from 0.784 to 0.902,explaining good internal consistency of the measuring scale.(2)In the part of investigating the seafarer’s need for safety training and to know their basic safety knowledge mastery condition,the seafarers showed a great demand in the safety training in first-aid techniques、safety knowledge education and other skills such as escape skills and so on,and other parts such as physical and mental health、fire safety education and rescuing skills were suggested by them,too. The part of basic safety knowledge related to the points such as the position when injured、the clinical manifestations of shock and the precautions when using the hemostatic bandage,which were related to the shipping environment. Generally speaking,the seafarers investigated have a good sense of basic safety knowledge,the accuracy rate for the 7 questions ranged from 81.22% to 95.2%,as to the individuals,218 of them had a 100% accuracy rate for the all 7 questions,87.67% of the seafarer’s accuracy rate were greater than 70%.But it showed no statistical significance in different demographic characteristics of seafarers.(2)When compared the safety culture awareness of different demographic characteristics of seafarers,seafarers in different age group、different shipping time group and different years of working in this company just showed statistical significance in the “Safety policy” dimension;seafarers in different education level showed statistical significance in the “Safety attitude”and“Safety knowledge” dimensions;seafarers in different positions showed statistical significance in the “Safety attitude”、“Safety policy” and “Safety management” dimensions;seafarers that have experienced accident or not group showed statistical significance in the “Safety policy”、“Safety knowledge”、“Safety management”dimensionsand the overall level of the safey culture.Conclusion:(1)Safety culture questionnaire for the seafarers designed in this research have good reliability and validity,which can provide reference for the future study to set up tools to study the safety culture of the shipping groups.(2)The seafarers have a good knowledge of the basis safety points,but there is a great demand for safety training. The management should strengthen the safety training,and enrich the contents of the training according to the survey.(3)The results of assessment of the seafarer’s safety culture were different with different individual characteristics and job characters,which could give some tips for the management.