The Accreditation Board for Engineering Technology (ABET) requires that
safety and health be integrated into an engineering curriculum in order to be
accredited. These criteria for safety and health requirements, however, are not
clearly defined. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
(NIOSH) has initiated Project SHAPE (Safety and Health Awareness for
Preventative Engineering) instructional topics and curriculum development for
engineering programs for the greater than 300 ABET accredited engineering
schools.
The present study was designed to evaluate how important safety and
health (addressed as Environmental Safety and Health) knowledge/education
are to an employer when seeking graduating Bachelor of Science Engineering
students at Oregon State University (OSU). The study also seeks to find out
what magnitude of ES&H instruction/knowledge is desired by prospective employers. And finally, the type or level of knowledge/education employers are
seeking in their prospective OSU engineering employee.
A questionnaire was developed and targeted at companies who recruited
graduating Bachelor of Science Engineering students at OSU for employment
during the 1993/1994 and 1994/1995 academic years. A roster of recruiters and
the companies they represented generated a population of 110 recruiters from
records kept in the Oregon State University Career Placement Office. Each
recruiter was requested to complete a four page questionnaire. Participants
were requested to rank qualifications for employment when seeking prospective
engineering employees; how important ES&H were when considering a
candidate; what kind and level of ES&H knowledge/education was preferred; and
if a graduating B.S. Engineering student with ES&H knowledge/education was
more likely to gain employment with their firm. A total of 72 surveys were
returned, for an overall response rate of 65.5%.
The results indicated that recruiters seeking graduating B.S. engineering
students at OSU found ES&H knowledge/education 'Not Too' or 'Not At All'
important when considering them for employment. However, the majority of
those recruiters that indicated ES&H was an important qualification when
considering an engineering candidate for employment, indicated the source of
ES&H knowledge/education was through integration into the engineering
curriculum. / Graduation date: 1998
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/33862 |
| Date | 21 November 1997 |
| Creators | Leary, Mitchell |
| Contributors | Rossignol, Annette M. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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