Construction hazard awareness and construction safety knowledge sharing epistemology

Abstract

Cognitive psychologists believe human error is the result of one or multiple catastrophes in three stages of the cognition process, namely hazard perception, recognition and decision making. Endsley's situation awareness theory proposed that when a person encounters a treacherous situation, precise and speedy decision making comprises matching or pattern recognition, which requires sophisticated schemata formation, and prototypical situations which ease the decision-making process. Hazard recognition largely depends on workers' ability to detect hazards. Thus, safety training is devoted to equipping workers with the skills needed to recognise and manage dangers. While mobile apps, Web 2.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT) are popular in everyday life communications, we speculate that safety awareness can be enhanced if these tools are popular in safety knowledge sharing among construction practitioners, emphasising the factors that influence their use, such as barriers, motivations, and psychological perspectives. The study found that the construction industry has not fully adopted these tools for knowledge sharing, and has not achieved considerable progress in safety awareness. Indeed, 13% of participants considered privacy concerns regarding the social media platforms, but this did not hinder their willingness to use said platforms. Similarly, the lack of knowledge of the older generation when it comes to using various platforms is a significant challenge for information sharing. The determination and willingness to learn have, however, led to an increase in the use of these platforms, with 54% of the articles dealing with knowledge sharing confirming this. Keywords: construction safety, knowledge sharing, epistemology.