Effect of hazardous material symbols labeling and training on comprehension according to three types of educational specialization International journal of industrial ergonomics 31 (2003) An-Hsiang Wang, Chun-Cheng Chi Report: Yang Kun, Ou

Purpose The purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of hazardous material symbol labeling and training on the comprehension of three groups of participants having differing educational specialization. A purpose of this research is to learn whether Taiwan’s hazard symbol labels met the criteria of ANSI and ISO standards.

Reference The use of context may help reduce the costs of producing pictorial symbols with acceptable, above-criterion comprehension levels ( Wolff and Wogalter, 1998) Jaynes and Boles (1990) results found that symbols with context yielded better performance in reading, and complying

Reference Cairney and Sless (1982) found that groups (migrants, native-born and Vietnamese) differ in their recognition and recall test performance on symbolic safety If university graduate students do not understand hazard symbols, less educated individuals are apt to encounter even greater difficulty in understanding them.

Reference Wogalter et al. (1997) have found that training leads to a significant increase in pictorial comprehension

Method Subjects –60 university graduates –They were between 22 and 26 years old –60 人有工程、設計和商學背景各 20 人 –20(10 male, 10 female) –The subjects were determined to have 0.8 corrected visual acuity or better, and normal color vision.

Apparatus Topcon Screenscope SS-3 Standard Pseudo-Isochromatic charts Twelve hazard symbols were printed on individual 10x10 cm sheets of white paper.

Experiment design The factor of training was studied on three levels in the experiment: –comprehension prior to training –comprehension immediately following training –comprehension one month following training Education was between-subjects variables Training and symbolic pictorial were within- subjects variables

Procedure The first stage of experiment began with an open-ended pre-training test, in which subjects were asked to write down the meaning of each symbol on an A4-sided paper. Subjects were provided with no time limit within which to write their responses

Procedure The experimenter told the subjects the meaning of the hazard symbols through the use of a hazard symbol label booklet Thirty seconds was spent in describing the meaning of each hazard symbol Upon completion of this step, recognition training was conducted

Procedure Subjects saw the meaning of randomly selected hazard symbols on A4 paper and were asked to pick the corresponding symbol from the booklet of hazard symbols If subjects selected the wrong hazard symbol, the experimenter told the subjects the correct meaning of the hazard symbol again.

Procedure The recognition training procedure Recall training required subjects to orally recall the correct meaning of hazard symbols that were randomly selected by the experimenter from the booklet of hazard symbol labels

Procedure After the training session, the subjects were given a 10-min break after which they were asked to engage in a set of unrehearsed tasks (playing poker) that served as a distraction to prevent stimuli from being retained in short- term memory (Wogalter et al., 1997)

Procedure In the second stage of the experiment, subjects taking the immediate post-training test were shown the hazard symbols (in a new random order) and were asked to write down their meaning. The third stage of experiment was held one month following the immediate post-training test.

Data analysis ISO 9186(2001) 計算方式 –estimated probability of correct understanding over 80%) were assigned as a score of ‘‘1’’ –estimated probability of correct understanding between 66% and 80%) were assigned as ‘‘0.75’’ –Estimated probability of correct understanding between 50% and 65%) were assigned as ‘‘0.5’’ –The meaning which is understood is opposite to the intended was assigned as a score of ‘‘1’’

Results The hazard symbol had a significant effect on comprehension F(11,627)=32.54, P<0.01 The education specialization produced a significant main effect on symbol comprehension F(2, 57)=8.51, P<0.01 The training had a significant effect on comprehension F(2,114)=248.7, P<0.01

Results

Reults

Results

Discussion We found that the hazard symbol labels for explosives materials and poisonous materials group I and II were familiar pictorials, and be considered to be well-designed pictorials as they exceeded the ISO 67% comprehension standard.

Discussion Subjects had good comprehension immediately following training and had the least comprehension dropping one month after training There is significant comprehension difference among the three groups of subjects The industrial specialization showed the significantly better comprehension than the subjects of business and design.

Discussion The well-design hazard symbols which were the best understood initially, also resulted in the least comprehension dropping in the one month post-training test Consequently, redesigning the poor-designed symbols to be maximally understandable is still very important despite the high cost of redesigning.