Sarah Maynard

Making training more cognitively effective: making videos interactive

The cost of health and safety failures to UK industry is currently estimated at up to £6.5 billion per annum with the construction sector suffering unacceptably high levels of work related incidents. Better health and safety education across all skill levels in the industry is seen as an integral part of any solution. Traditional lecture-based courses often fail to re-create the dynamic realities of managing health and safety (H&S) on-site and therefore do not sufficiently create deeper cognitive learning (which results in remembering and using what was learned). The use of videos is a move forward, but passively observing a video is not cognitively engaging and challenging, and therefore learning is not as effective as it can be. This article describes the development of an interactive video in which learners take an active role. While observing the video, they are required to engage, participate, respond, and be actively involved. The potential for this approach to be used in conjunction with more traditional approaches to H&S were explored using a group of second year undergraduate civil engineering students. The formative results suggested that the learning experience could be enhanced using interactive videos. Nevertheless, most of the learners believed that a blended approach would be most effective.

Monitoring household waste recycling centres performance using mean bin weight analyses

This paper describes a modelling approach used to investigate the significance of key factors (vehicle type, compaction type, site design, temporal effects) in influencing the variability in observed nett amenity bin weights produced by household waste recycling centres (HWRCs). This new method can help to quickly identify sites that are producing significantly lighter bins, enabling detailed back-end analyses to be efficiently targeted and best practice in HWRC operation identified. Tested on weigh ticket data from nine HWRCs across West Sussex, UK, the model suggests that compaction technique, vehicle type, month and site design explained 76% of the variability in the observed nett amenity weights. For each factor, a weighting coefficient was calculated to generate a predicted nett weight for each bin transaction and three sites were subsequently identified as having similar characteristics but returned significantly different mean nett bin weights. Waste and site audits were then conducted at the three sites to try and determine the possible sources of the remaining variability. Significant differences were identified in the proportions of contained waste (bagged), wood, and dry recyclables entering the amenity waste stream, particularly at one site where significantly less contaminated waste and dry recyclables were observed.

Potential for Local Bring Sites to Reduce Householder Recycling Mileage

Using a significant database of origin postcodes, a study was designed to estimate the current annual mileage associated with visitor trips to household waste recycling centers (HWRCs)—known as manned recycling drop-off centers in the United States—and to identify how this mileage could be reduced if a series of “bring sites” (unmanned recycling drop-off centers) in the community were enhanced to take green garden waste. The total annual distance driven by approximately 4,677,000 visitors to the 26 HWRCs in Hampshire, United Kingdom, is estimated to be 40 million kilometers (assuming that 60% of visitors made dedicated trips), costing approximately £14 million (£1 =

Risk Assessment Education: Utilizing Interactive Video for Teaching Health and Safety

1.896 in April 2005 U.S. dollars) in private transport and emitting approximately 1,873 tonnes of CO2 (as carbon) into the atmosphere. Providing a network of 104 bring sites capable of accepting green waste, in addition to the existing facilities provided by the 26 HWRCs, could save approximately 8.5 million kilometers (21%) of vehicle travel per annum (£3 million in visitor transport costs and approximately 369 tonnes of CO2 as carbon). Such a scheme would require a fleet of approximately 78 refuse collection vehicles at an annual cost to the scheme provider of slightly more than £1.5 million. If HWRCs become a major channel for the return and reprocessing of waste electrical and electronic equipment and some newly classified hazardous waste items, space at existing sites could become an issue. More local consolidation of certain waste categories (e.g., green waste) would enable HWRCs to focus their activities better.

The potential of financial incentives to enhance householders’ kerbside recycling behaviour

Work related accidents in the construction industry are at an unacceptably high level. Better education (particularly related to re-training) across all skill levels in the industry is seen as an integral part of any solution. Traditional lecture-based courses often fail to re-create the dynamic realities of managing health and safety (H&S) on-site. They therefore do not sufficiently engage the students in deeper learning (which results in remembering and using what was learned). Interactive video appears to be one method which can aid this process by better engaging students with the material. This paper describes the development of an interactive video used to teach students about risks in setting out on-street traffic engineering experiments.