Citation

Culvenor J, Else D. Safety Sci. 1997; 25(1-3): 187-205.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1997, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Enhancing expertise by way of training in health and safety is a common approach in injury prevention. The rationale is that providing people with an understanding of health and safety enables them to better conduct prevention programs. Given the pre-eminent role of engineers in design and the contribution to be made to safety though good design, there are regular calls for engineers to have more safety education. However, integration of new material is difficult in already crowded engineering curricula. Current management trends are emphasising the importance of creativity. Within this climate, we propose that training engineers in creative thinking may improve their skills in injury prevention. Compared to safety-specific knowledge, creative thinking methods may be easier to integrate with engineering studies because of their contemporary meaning and wide applicability. To test this hypothesis we trained undergraduate engineering students of the University of Ballarat in creative thinking based on de Bono's Six Thinking Hats method. We tested their ability to generate solutions and make decisions about hazard control options. The results show that training in creative thinking improves the ability to generate solutions and improves the ability to prioritize solutions in terms of their prevention potential. These effects are evident when people work alone or work in a team of three.