Development and Validation of a Safety Attitude Scale for Coal Miners in China
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Theoretical Basis and Research Hypothesis
2.1. Preliminary Development of Scale
- Management safety commitment: The objects of safety attitude are safety software and concepts, which include safety laws and regulations, along with safety management. Rundmo and Hale [20] pointed out that managerial attitudes affect managers’ decisions, employees’ safety attitudes and the company’s policies and safety status. Similarly, in the coal mining industry, managers’ safety attitudes have a significant impact on those of coal miners.
- Team safety climate: In the coal mining industry, the team is the basic unit of coal production and forms the entire coal mine production unit. The coal miners will affect the attitudes of others in the team, and the attitude of one person can easily lead to their partaking in illegal operations, followed by other team members behaving in a similar manner. Therefore, the creation of a good atmosphere in the team will help to promote safe coal mining practices.
- Fatalism: Fatalism is a factor used to explain occupational accidents, as employees who have a fatalist attitude believe that accidents are caused by “fate” [21]. Therefore, a fatalist attitude reduces the importance of safety precautions for coal miners and can lead to accidents.
- Work pressure: Recent research has shown that the pressure of work has a considerable influence on an employee’s safety behavior [22]. Britt et al. believed that a high level of pressure will seriously affect workers’ physical and mental health and behavior choices and can make them extremely prone to accidents [23].
- Risk awareness: The related attitudes include attitude toward personal risks and control of risky behaviors. If the coal miners have negative attitudes towards risks and if they cannot identify the risks caused by mistakes, accidents will probably occur, whereas coal miners with a good sense of risk and of risk prevention will reduce the occurrence of such accidents.
- Personal safety responsibility: In the coal mining industry, the proportion of human-related accidents has reached 90%, and the unsafe practice of coal miners is one of the major causes of these accidents; moreover, illegal operation is a primary example of unsafe practices. However, if coal miners have a strong sense of responsibility and abide by laws, regulations and rules, a large number of accidents could be avoided.
2.2. Sample and Procedures
3. Results and Analysis
3.1. Exploratory Factor Analysis
3.2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis
4. Discussion
4.1. Scale Development
4.2. Scale Confirmation
5. Conclusions and Implications
- This paper contributes to the current occupational safety research by developing a valid and reliable factor structure of coal miners’ safety attitude. Based on the objects of safety attitude, an effective safety attitude scale was obtained by systematically exploring the dimensions of safety attitude and designing items related to cognitive, emotional and behavioral tendencies. The safety attitude factor structure provides a more profound interpretation of this crucial construct in the safety research domain.
- A measurement scale has been developed that contains four dimensions, i.e., management safety commitment, team safety climate, fatalism and work pressure. There are 17 questions in total, and it demonstrates high validity and reliability (Appendix A). By providing a uniform measuring criterion, this scale will facilitate future safety attitude research both in the coal mining industry and other industries.
- The measurement scale serves as an important tool for safety attitude benchmarking among different coal mining enterprises and thus can boost overall safety improvement of the whole industry.
- According to the findings of the questionnaire survey, it is also recommended that the safety training and education of coal miners should be strengthened, the miners’ work pressure should be reduced and managers’ attention to safety should be increased. These are the most crucial measures to promote coal miners’ safety attitudes currently.
Acknowledgments
Author Contributions
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A
Dimensions | Codes | Items |
---|---|---|
Management safety commitment | MSC1 | All of the machinery is equipped with a safeguard |
MSC2 | Management provide us with excellent personal protective devices | |
MSC3 | Management communicate with us about safety frequently, and we can speak out freely | |
MSC4 | Management legislate safety regulations, which are suitable for our work, and demand that we comply fully with these regulations | |
MSC5 | Management care about our safety | |
Fatalism | F6 | An accident won’t be prevented, even if management take actions to prevent it |
F7 | An accident won’t be prevented due to the poor work environment | |
F8 | An accident won’t be prevented due to the need to use machinery | |
F9 | Whatever I do, an accident won’t be prevented | |
Team safety climate | TSC10 | Each employee plays a significant role in safe production |
TSC11 | If someone disobeys regulations, he would be reminded of his obligations by co-workers | |
TSC12 | We would help each other if we got into trouble | |
TSC13 | If co-workers disobeyed a safety regulation, I would follow them | |
Work pressure | WP14 | The workload makes me bored |
WP15 | The regulations underground are tedious, which makes people unnecessarily nervous | |
WP16 | The work underground is simple and repetitive, which causes me to become bored | |
WP17 | There is a high temperature and high humidity underground, which makes me uncomfortable |
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Items | Factor Loading | Communality | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
MSC | F | PSR | WP | TSC | ||
A1: All of the machinery is equipped with a safeguard | 0.70 | 0.50 | ||||
A2: Management provide us with excellent personal protective devices | 0.73 | 0.55 | ||||
A3: Management communicate with us about safety frequently, and we can speak out freely | 0.85 | 0.73 | ||||
A4: Management legislate safety regulations, which are suitable for our work, and demand that we comply fully with these regulations | 0.68 | 0.57 | ||||
A5: Management care about our safety | 0.70 | 0.51 | ||||
A6: An accident won’t be prevented, even if management take actions to prevent it | 0.81 | 0.76 | ||||
A7: An accident won’t be prevented due to the poor work environment | 0.89 | 0.82 | ||||
A8: An accident won’t be prevented due to the need to use machinery | 0.86 | 0.81 | ||||
A9: Whatever I do, an accident won’t be prevented | 0.83 | 0.79 | ||||
A10: The occurrence of an accident is down to probability, therefore we should just trust our luck | 0.84 | 0.81 | ||||
A11: Good production techniques do not lead to unsafe behavior | 0.69 | 0.82 | ||||
A12: Each employee plays a significant role in safe production | 0.68 | 0.68 | ||||
A13: If someone disobeys regulations, he would be reminded of his obligations by co-workers | 0.62 | 0.74 | ||||
A14: We would help each other if we got into trouble | 0.72 | 0.73 | ||||
A15: If co-workers disobeyed a safety regulation, I would follow them | 0.80 | 0.84 | ||||
A16: The workload makes me bored | 0.71 | 0.75 | ||||
A17: The regulations underground are tedious, which makes people unnecessarily nervous | 0.59 | 0.68 | ||||
A18: The work underground is simple and repetitive, which causes me to become bored | 0.77 | 0.74 | ||||
A19: There is a high temperature and high humidity underground, which makes me uncomfortable | 0.83 | 0.70 | ||||
A20: Safety is my own business, it has nothing to do with anyone else | 0.72 | 0.71 | ||||
A21: I will operate according to my own experience | 0.80 | 0.75 | ||||
Eigenvalue | 6.36 | 3.54 | 1.99 | 1.89 | 1.20 | |
Cumulative % of explanatory variance | 30.27 | 47.10 | 56.59 | 65.61 | 71.33 |
F | MSC | TSC | PSR | WP | Scale | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
F | 1 | 0.76 ** | ||||
MSC | 0.04 | 1 | 0.44 ** | |||
TSC | 0.00 | 0.44 ** | 1 | 0.39 ** | ||
PSR | 0.60 ** | −0.01 | 0.17 | 1 | 0.63 ** | |
WP | 0.39 ** | 0.02 | 0.09 | 0.41 ** | 1 | 0.63 ** |
Scale | 0.76 ** | 0.44 ** | 0.39 ** | 0.63 ** | 0.63 ** | 1 |
F | MSC | PSR | WP | TSC | Scale | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cronbach’s α | 0.93 | 0.78 | 0.89 | 0.77 | 0.65 | 0.89 |
Number of items | 6 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 21 |
Estimate | Standard Error | Critical Ratio | p-Value | |
---|---|---|---|---|
A1 ← MSC | 0.573 | 0.031 | 18.522 | *** |
A2 ← MSC | 0.821 | 0.037 | 22.134 | *** |
A3 ← MSC | 0.941 | 0.038 | 24.571 | *** |
A4 ← MSC | 0.680 | 0.034 | 19.855 | *** |
A5 ← MSC | 0.769 | 0.037 | 20.771 | *** |
A6 ← F | 0.909 | 0.045 | 20.109 | *** |
A7 ← F | 1.092 | 0.041 | 26.410 | *** |
A8 ← F | 1.049 | 0.042 | 25.202 | *** |
A9 ← F | 0.749 | 0.042 | 17.758 | *** |
A12 ← TSC | 0.581 | 0.040 | 14.411 | *** |
A13 ← TSC | 0.474 | 0.032 | 14.735 | *** |
A14 ← TSC | 0.546 | 0.042 | 12.966 | *** |
A15 ← TSC | 0.582 | 0.036 | 16.089 | *** |
A16 ← WP | 1.041 | 0.042 | 24.827 | *** |
A17 ← WP | 0.774 | 0.044 | 17.487 | *** |
A18 ← WP | 0.916 | 0.043 | 21.478 | *** |
A19 ← WP | 1.014 | 0.044 | 23.182 | *** |
A21 ← PSR | 0.811 | 0.050 | 16.158 | *** |
Model | χ2 (d.f.) | χ2/d.f. | GFI | AGFI | TLI | CFI | RMSEA |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ideal model | <3 | >0.90 | >0.90 | ≥0.95 | ≥0.95 | <0.08 | |
SAS | 380.662 (139) *** | 2.86 | 0.93 | 0.91 | 0.95 | 0.96 | 0.06 |
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Wu, X.; Yin, W.; Wu, C.; Li, Y. Development and Validation of a Safety Attitude Scale for Coal Miners in China. Sustainability 2017, 9, 2165. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9122165
Wu X, Yin W, Wu C, Li Y. Development and Validation of a Safety Attitude Scale for Coal Miners in China. Sustainability. 2017; 9(12):2165. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9122165
Chicago/Turabian StyleWu, Xiang, Wenwen Yin, Chunlin Wu, and Yuanlong Li. 2017. "Development and Validation of a Safety Attitude Scale for Coal Miners in China" Sustainability 9, no. 12: 2165. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9122165