Evaluating a farm safety training program with rural high school students.
Scharf-T; Cole-H; Kidd-P; Mazur-J; Westneat-S; Phillips-S; Bayer-S; Elliot-P; Colligan-M; Chrislip-D
ICOH 2002 Oct; :186-187
A farm safety exercise was evaluated by high school students in rural Kentucky. "The Kayles' Difficult Decisions" (KDD) farm family interactive simulation encourages participants to examine the underlying connections between productivity, workload, safe work practices, and risks for injury in the context of the entire farm operation. The KDD exercise has been presented to Kentucky farmers, university classes, and professional meetings. The evaluation with high school students is the first systematic assessment of the effectiveness of the exercise in communicating information about farm safety issues. The evaluation measures include: 1) information learned about farm safety and economics; and the degree to which participants: 2) think about farm safety issues, and 3) talk about these. This discussion highlights the two media used for the exercise: print and CD-ROM. The evaluation study included 287 high school students, in three experimental conditions: 74 print, 82 CD-ROM, and 131 control. Results are examined by: 1) treatment condition, 2) farming status, and 3) knowing someone involved in a tractor overturn. Some of the cell sizes are very small. Nevertheless the two media appear to be differentially effective to a small degree. For example: 1) print version participants who lived and worked on the farm and did not know anyone who had overturned a tractor performed less well than farming students who did know someone in an overturn; 2) CD-ROM version participants performed somewhat uniformly, regardless of familiarity with farming or tractor overturns. Follow-up research questions are proposed.
Farmers; Agricultural-industry; Safety-education; Safety-measures; Safety-programs; Training; Work-practices; Safety-practices; Risk-factors; Injuries; Injury-prevention; Agricultural-workers
Abstract; Conference/Symposia Proceedings
Research Tools and Approaches: Intervention Effectiveness Research
Best Practices in Occupational Safety and Health, Education, Training, and Communication: Ideas That Sizzle, 6th International Conference, Scientific Committee on Education and Training in Occupational Health, ICOH, In Cooperation with The International Communication Network, ICOH, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, October 28-30, 2002