Purpose of the study. The purpose of this study was to determine the educational and experiential status of today's safety educators, teaching at the college level. Areas studied included the perceptions of the safety educators as to the value of their education and work experience in relation to their suitability to teach safety at the college level; the perception of the safety educators of the need for mandatory professional certification; and the professional development requirements to maintain certification. Methodology. A descriptive research methodology was employed to gather and report the data for the study. A survey questionnaire was sent to all members of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) who live in the United States and list their occupations as educators. The ASSE is the dominant professional safety organization in the United States and the society's members provided an excellent survey sample. Results. The results of the study were based on the data collected from the questionnaires returned by the respondents. The survey provided useful data on the demographics of the nation's safety educators. The survey provided information about the importance of education, experience, and professional certification for safety educators as perceived by the respondents. Conclusions. Relatively few safety programs exist at colleges and universities in the United States. Indications are that the opportunities for safety graduates will continue to grow. The American Society of Safety Engineers has developed a recommended core curriculum and established program standards for college safety programs. At this time only seven institutions have met the requirements for accreditation under these ASSE guidelines. While the ASSE recommendations do not include standards for safety educators, a well-defined safety curriculum will serve to disclose the goals and aspirations of the safety program. In turn, these goals and aspirations will serve to establish the prerequisite skills and talents necessary to become an educator in that safety program.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-8776 |
| Date | 01 January 1993 |
| Creators | McDonald, Larry Howard |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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