|
Affiliation
|
Secção Autónoma de Ergonomia & CIPER, Faculdade de Motricidade Humana, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Cruz Quebrada, Portugal. |
|
Abstract
|
BACKGROUND: In many enterprises the semi-quantitative approach turns out to be the available and most suitable technique to perform a risk assessment. Despite its advantages, we cannot disregard the existing gap in terms of validation of this type of applications.
OBJECTIVE: This paper reports a study about risk assessments' reliability, namely both inter-coder (reproducibility) and intra-coder (stability) reliability of the semi-quantitative approach.
METHODS: This study comprised 4 fundamental stages. Data collection relied on free and systematized observations and made use of video recording, documental research, analysis grids and questionnaires specifically developed for this purpose. A set of different analysts were asked to use four semi-quantitative risk assessment methods (in two different moments) to estimate and assess six risks identified in two tasks accomplished to produce Airbags. The Krippendorff's Alpha Coefficient (α _K) was the agreement measure selected to evaluate both inter-coder and intra-coder consensus.
RESULTS: The preliminary results revealed a general low concordance (α _K < 0.6) for both reliability evaluations. Apparently there are no relevant differences between the risk assessment results obtained by individuals with different levels of experience or expertise.
CONCLUSIONS: This study revealed that the use of the semi-quantitative approach should be done with caution.
Language: en |