By Steven Geigle, CSHM - March 2006

What is Education?

Anything that affects our knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSA's)
Ed-u-cer-e” (ey-doo-ker-ey) Latin…that which leads out of ignorance
Education is continual. We are always being educated

Two Types of Safety Education

Safety Instruction

All employees receive general safety education through work experience, orientations, safety meetings, and classroom presentation. Some important characteristics of general instruction include:

General/Specific safety information is presented. Much of safety instruction focuses on "why" being safe is important to the employee.
Learner knowledge and skills are not measured at the end of training. There's no testing involved in the presentation.
Trainers might write training and learning goals as appropriate. Sample training goal: "Present an overview of the importance of safety incentives and recognition." Sample learning goal: "Gain a greater awareness of the types of hazards in the workplace."
Learning objectives are not required because KSA's are not evaluated.
All the learner need do do is attend the presentation to get credit or certificate
Measurement focuses on student's reaction to the content and learning process. The trainer does not evaluate learning.
Measurement tools include - "smile sheet" and other student evaluation forms

Type 2: Technical Safety Training Most workplace accidents are the result of unsafe behaviors. To make sure employees behave, they not only need to know why using safe procedures and practices is important, they need know how to actually perform those procedures and practices. Characteristics of safety training include:

Technical training focuses on training how to comply with specific safety policies, procedures, and practices
Trainers must may write training and learning goals. But it's not required. Sample training goal: "Train learners how to correctly perform a lockout/tagout procedure." Sample learning goal: "Correctly perform all steps of a lockout/tagout procedure."
Trainers should write operational learning objectives to comply with ANSI Z490.1-2001. Sample operational objective: "By the end of the training session, given the equipment and requirement to perform a simulated procedure, the learner will be able to describe and correctly perform all steps of the lockout/tagout procedure for the equipment."
The learner knowledge and skills are measured immediately after training in the learning environment. Some sort of simulated condition is given that allows the learner to practice and demonstrate competency.
The learner must "pass a test" in class to get credit or a certificate. Measurement tools include oral/written exams and skill demonstrations
Technical training is far more common than instruction and is the type of education most required by OSHA standards.
Remember, technical training should be a "hands-on-how-to" presentation

FREE ACCESS: Online Certified Safety and Health Manager (CSHM) Educational and Exam Preparation Reference Materials

As a benefit for our current and future dues-paying members, NSMS is permanently offering free access to the Certified Safety and Health Manager (CSHM) preparation and educational materials. The online resources, created by NSMS member Steve Geigle, can be found at www.cshmprep.com and the only action an NSMS member take is to email Steve requesting access from that website. You will need to include your current NSMS member number (found on your membership card and certificate). Once the number is verified, you will be granted a username and password to access the online reference materials. This is a great opportunity to brush up on your safety management and technical knowledge and prepare for a successful passing of the CSHM certification examination.

Safety Training Strategies – Hearing Conservation

Begin with a refresher of how the ear works, explaining how the noise vibrations travel over the hairs inside the Cochlea, and that as the vibrations travel over the hair they bend and move.

Over time of exposing the ear to excessive noise, or sudden impact noise, it causes the hairs to remain bent, affecting how the vibrations are interpreted to sound in the brain (hearing loss). Compare the bent hairs to an old worn toothbrush, and how the bristles loose resilience over time (showing a new toothbrush and one showing the bristles bent over and damaged.

The correlation is that using a toothbrush that has bent bristles will not be as effective, and eventually useless, as would your hearing if exposure to excessive noise is not protected, causing damage to the hairs. However, we can throw out the unusable toothbrush and buy a new one, but a person cannot buy new hearing. (Source: NSMS Newsletter)