Nanotechnology Safety Training: Addressing the Missing Piece

This OSHA Susan Harwood Grant addressed nanotechnology safety training for workers and was critical for building a path for future training/education courses. The purposes of the grant were to facilitate training and to assess the outcomes of the participants’ knowledge. Two trainers went to four sites in the United States, including one in Puerto Rico, to conduct eight-hour courses in the Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) implications of nanomaterials

A survey was distributed to participants at the end of the course to assess the quality of the course and the instructors. Overwhelmingly, approximately 95% of the participants were satisfied with the quality of the course and instruction.

A pretest was given to the participants to assess if they knew anything about EHS, and a posttest was administered after the training course. A hypothesis test was used to determine the effectiveness of the content of the course. A paired samples t-test was used to ascertain whether there was an improvement in scores from the pretest to the posttest. The findings indicated a statistically significant difference between the group mean scores from the pretest to the posttest. In essence, the participants improved from the pretest to the posttest scores as a result of the training. However, there are caution should be taken when addressing the results as the sole indicator of the participants’ success.