Lisa Dorn

The effects of age, gender and computer experience upon computer attitudes

Summary The effects of age, gender and prior computing experience upon attitudes towards computers were investigated in 278 secondary school pupils drawn from the 11‐12 and 15‐16 years age‐groups. Males from both age‐groups reported greater experience with and more positive attitudes towards computers than females. Younger pupils, both male and female, were found to have greater experience with and more positive attitudes towards computers than older pupils. After controlling for ownership and use of a home computer by means of analyses of covariance, female and male pupils reported similar levels of enjoyment of computers, but age differences in enjoyment and gender and age differences in confidence with computers remained significant. Similar analyses using length of experience as a covariate did not significantly affect gender or age differences. The need to investigate and address the level of confidence of female pupils is briefly discussed.

Personality correlates of driver stress

This paper reports four studies of personality and mood correlates of a validated questionnaire measure of predisposition to driver stress, the Driving Behaviour Inventory (DBI: Gulian, Matthews, Glendon, Davies and Debney, 1989a; Ergonomics, 32, 585-602). The DBI measures a general factor of driver stress, plus five more specific dimensions. Study 1 (N = 159) found that general driver stress was positively correlated with the EPQ N scale and with minor accident involvement. Study 2 (N = 44) obtained significant positive correlations between driver stress and frequency of daily hassles and aggressiveness. In Study 3 (N = 49), it was shown that higher driver stress was related to poorer self-rated attention. Study 4 (N = 50) demonstrated that driver stress was associated with stressed mood states, both in the drivers car, and in a control condition. Results of the four studies also showed that different specific dimensions of driver stress are associated with different correlates. For example, a dimension of driving aggression was associated primarily with self-reported interpersonal and behavioural reactions, whereas a dislike of driving dimension correlated mainly with cognitive and affective reactions. The studies reported add to the validation of the DBI, and further support the distinctiveness of at least some of the five specific dimensions of driver stress. Language: en

Driver stress and performance on a driving simulator

Effects of stress on driving performance can depend on the nature of drivers stress reactions and on the traffic environment. In an experimental study, we assessed multiple dimensions of vulnerability to driver stress by a questionnaire that was validated in previous field studies and related those dimensions to performance on a driving simulator. Results were broadly consistent with prediction. A dimension of habitual dislike of driving was associated with reduced control skills, greater caution, and disturbance of moods. A measure of aggressive driving predicted more frequent and more error-prone overtaking, which are effects attributed to the use of confrontive coping strategies in interaction with other vehicles. An alertness measure predicted speed of reaction to pedestrian hazards. This research has practical applications for system design, automated monitoring of driver performance, selection and assessment of drivers, and training.

Reliability of the Driving Behaviour Inventory

The Driving Behaviour Inventory (DBI), developed as a measure of dimensions of driver stress, was completed by 61 participants on two occasions separated by an interval of 5 months. Coefficients alpha, test-retest realiability, and correlational analyses between the five scales derived from earlier factor analyses revealed that the ‘driving aggression’, ‘dislike of driving’, ‘irritation when overtaken’ and ‘frustration in overtaking’ scales were reliable. The ‘general driver stress’ scale, derived from the single factor solution, was found to be particularly robust. In its original form the ‘driving alertness’ scale was found to be less robust. Minor changes in respect of adding items to and deleting items from three of the scales improved their reliability. It is concluded that overall the DBI is a reliable self-report measure of driver stress.

The Manchester Driver Behaviour Questionnaire as a predictor of road traffic accidents

The Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ) has mainly been used as a predictor of self-reported road traffic accidents. The associations between crashes and the violation and error factors of the DBQ, however, may be spuriously high due to reporting bias. In the present study, the DBQ was tested as a predictor of self-reported and recorded accidents in four samples of private and professional drivers. The findings show that the DBQ scale only predicts self-reported accidents, not recorded crashes, despite the higher validity of company data and the higher means of the recorded data across these samples. The results can be explained by a common method variance bias. In a review of the DBQ research, the use of the instrument was found to be heterogeneous concerning the number of items, scales used and factor analytic methods applied. Thus, the DBQ may not be as homogeneous and as successful in predicting accidents as is often claimed.

Cognitive and Attentional Processes in Personality and Intelligence

The aim of this chapter is to discuss progress in relating intelligence and personality to constructs based on information-processing theory. There has been extensive research on correlations between indices of information-processing functions and psychometric intelligence and personality measures, although it is relatively rare for intelligence and personality to be assessed within the same study. Because of the correlational nature of the evidence, we must tread carefully in drawing conclusions from it, and so we begin with an outline of the interpretative problems involved.

Development and validation of a self-report measure of bus driver behaviour

There are likely to be individual differences in bus driver behaviour when adhering to strict schedules under time pressure. A reliable and valid assessment of these individual differences would be useful for bus companies keen to mitigate risk of crash involvement. This paper reports on three studies to develop and validate a self-report measure of bus driver behaviour. For study 1, two principal components analyses of a pilot questionnaire revealed six components describing bus driver behaviour and four bus driver coping components. In study 2, test–retest reliability of the components were tested in a sub-sample and found to be adequate. Further, the 10 components were used to predict bus crash involvement at three levels of culpability with consistently significant associations found for two components. For study 3, avoidance coping was consistently associated with celeration variables in a bus simulator, especially for a time-pressured drive. Statement of Relevance:The instrument can be used by bus companies for driver stress and fatigue management training to identify at-risk bus driver behaviour. Training to reduce the tendency to engage in avoidance coping strategies, improve evaluative coping strategies and hazard monitoring when under stress may improve bus driver safety.

IQ and choice reaction time: An information processing analysis

There are two unresolved theoretical questions concerning the cognitive processes underlying the empirical correlation between IQ and choice reaction time (RT). First, are these processes under “upper” or “lower” level control? Second, are these processes associated with some global property of the mind, or with some specific processing module? This experiment addressed these questions by testing the correlation between Culture Fair IQ and a battery of nine choice RT tasks. Information processing requirements of the RT tasks were manipulated systematically to test which processes within a two-level stage model of choice RT were associated with the g-RT correlation. Results showed that the strongest correlations between IQ and mean RT were obtained with simple, control task versions. IQ also predicted a measure of “conscious attention” associated with availability of attentional resources. IQ did not appear to be associated with flexibility of allocation of attentional resources, or with feature extraction or response choices stages of processing. It is concluded that the there may be two separate mechanisms for correlations between g and RT. First, correlations in undemanding control conditions may reflect a specific association between g and lower level encoding speed. Correlations in more complex RT tasks may also be mediated by a positive association between IQ and resources for upper level processing.

Work-related road safety: An analysis based on U.K. bus driver performance

The effects of age and experience on accident involvement for bus drivers were investigated, with special emphasis upon the first years of being an operator, using two methods. First, direct calculations between these variables were undertaken. Thereafter, a variant of the method of quasi-induced exposure (a ratio of culpable versus nonculpable accidents in the population) was used and referred to as the indirect method. These methods yielded fairly similar results, given that the samples used were drawn from the same population but only partly overlapping. It was found that experience had the strongest effect on accidents in the first year of driving, while age had a u-shaped association with accidents, that is, young and old drivers had more accidents, something that was more apparent when experience was held constant. These results show that, for bus drivers, experience is initially more important than age, but after two or three years, the effect is small. Thereafter, age is the more discernible variable, although it is a very weak factor in predicting crash risk.

Absence behavior as traffic crash predictor in bus drivers

PROBLEM Various indicators of health have been shown to be associated with traffic crash involvement. As general health is also related to absence from work, the latter variable may be more strongly related to crashes, especially for professional drivers. METHOD Bus driver absence from work was analyzed in association with their crash records. Two British samples and one Swedish sample were used. RESULTS One of the British samples yielded fair correlations between crash record and absence, while for the other the effect was restricted to the first three months of driving. The Swedish data had effects in the expected direction but these were not significant. DISCUSSION The use of an indirect, overall measurement of health, may be a viable method for predicting the traffic crash involvement for professional drivers, although replications are needed in larger samples and other populations. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY The use of absence records for the identification of at risk drivers would seem to be a simple and useful method for companies with major fleets, and it also shows the importance of promoting employee health and well being at work as a potential method of reducing the cost, not only of absenteeism, but also of crashes in company vehicles.