Project presentation The study of human factor in industrial safety – response to risk and hazard communication By Joseph Wong

Content Introduction Methodology Result Expected finding

Introduction Which of the following would bring the most hazardous feeling to you??? DANGER CAUTION WARNING BEWARE NOTICE

Component of a warning sign Boarder *Background/Colour *Symbol/Shape Element *Text label/Signal word WARNING ! Remark: *Our research would focus on the hazardous perception of these sort of matters

The schematic diagram for the research design ColourWordShape Colour/ Word Colour/ Shape Shape/ Word 2nd Level 1st Level

Methodology Study Population Study Method Study Material

Study population 70 Higher Form student (Form 4) from a government secondary school in Hong Kong Student profile: 40 female and 30 male Average age range: years old

Study Method -By mean of experiment -A seven-point scale was provided to rate the the seriousness of hazardous that they would associate with: -Each colour, word, shape and -The combination of colour/word, colour/shape and shape/word

Details of matter under test For level 1 of experiment Colour: Red, Yellow, Orange, Green, Blue Signal word: Danger, Warning, Caution, Notice, Beware Sign shape: TrianglePentagon HexagonCircle Square

Details of matter under test For level 2 of experiment Red, Yellow, Orange, Green, Blue Danger, Warning, Caution, Notice, Beware TrianglePentagon HexagonCircle Square Colour/word Colour/shape Word/shape

Study Material A notebook computer A set of power-point slides An overhead projector A white screen for display And a preprinted rating sheet with 7- point scale for each elements under test

Result Hazardous perception on colour Mean rating for each colour

Result Perception of hazardous on colour (General) The ranking order (highest to lowest) is: Red, Yellow, Green Orange and Blue Mean rating: Red (4.5), Yellow (3.84), Green (3.49), Orange (3.01), Blue (2.26) Result consistent with Griffith and Leonard, 1988 with exception of orange

Result Perception of hazardous on colour (General) - Consistent with Braun and Silver, 1995; Griffith, 1995; Woglater et al, 1997a, 1998 that red colour connotes highest hazard, i.e not different between people with Western cultures. - Similar to the ranking order (with expectation of orange) as Rodriguez (1991) and Dunlap et al (1986). i.e Red, Yellow, Green, Blue.

Result Perception of hazardous on colour (General) -can differentiate between yellow and orange colour as pointed out by Chapins, 1994; Griffith, 1995; Woglater et al, Showed that the different between the people in Western culture and Eastern culture.

Result Perception of hazardous on colour (Gender Group)

Result Perception of hazardous on colour (Gender Group) -Ranking order is the same between gender group, i.e. Red, Yellow, Green, Orange, Blue -Male group has an average rating higher than Female group. -Higher different was occurred at Blue colour as Male (2.93), Female (2.26); 0.67 different. -Further study is required.

Result Perception of hazardous on colour (Compare with other research)

Result Perception of hazardous on colour (Compare with other research) -With exception of orange colour, ranking order is same as Leonard, 1997 as Red, Yellow, Green, Blue. -Have a closer mean rating in colour yellow and Blue -Blue and Green were seen to be the least hazardous perception among population in different cultural background

Result Perception of hazardous on Signal Words (General)

Result Perception of hazardous on Signal Words (General) -Ranking order (Highest to lowest): DANGER, WARNING, CAUTION, BEWARE. -Highest rating for DANGER compare with WARNING and CAUTION corroborates the findings of Bresnahan and Bryk, 1975; Dunlap et al, 1986; Wogalter and Silver, In line with the findings reported by Marhefka and Dorris, DANGER >WARNING or CAUTION and WARNING always >CAUTION.

Result Perception of hazardous on Signal Words (General) -Similar to the result worked by Wogalter and Silver, 1990: College student gave DANGER and WARNING significantly higher than CAUTION, but DANGER and WARNING did not different from each other (DANGER) and 5.16 (WARNING) respectively.

Result Perception of hazardous on Signal Words (General) -Significant differences in connoted hazard between individual pairs of terms, such as DANGER (5.46) and CAUTION (4.03). (Bresnahan and Bryk, 1975 and Dunlap et al, 1986). Thus no major different across study population - No differentiation problem between WARNING and CAUTION compare with result obtained from the other research

Result Perception of hazardous on Signal Words (General) -Findings on differentiation between WARNING and CAUTION provide support to Wogalter and Silver, 1995 with the ASU college student.

Result Perception of hazardous on Signal Words (Gender)

-Provide same ranking order -Mean rating between DANGER (5.27/Male) (5.6/Female) and WARNING (5.03/Male) (5.25/Female) is so close between group -On average female have a higher rating than male -Both male and female give a close rating to the signal word ‘CAUTION’ as 4.03 and 4.02 respectively

Result Perception of hazardous on Signal Words (Gender) -Female have a higher hazardous perception on signal words than male.

Result Perception of hazardous on Signal Words (Compare with other research)

Result Perception of hazardous level on Signal word (compare with other research) -With exception of the danger, all rating for others signal words in current study is higher than others -Demographic factors: Gender, Age and Personality (Wogalter et al, 1999) -Female may more sensitive to take appropriate action in response to warning

Result Perception of hazardous level on Signal word (compare with other research) -Influence in age significantly influence the result Middle school student generally assign higher rating than college did (Wogalter et al, 1994) -Ranking order was consistent across different group

Result for others like shape and the combination of colour, shape and word are in progress!!!!

Expected finding -Different in hazardous perception in Colour, Words and sign shape between people in Western culture and Eastern Culture -Different in hazardous perception between gender group -Report the hazardous perception for the subject in colour, word and sign shape

The end!! Thank You!!!