COMPARISON OF SAFETY CULTURE PERCEPTIONS OF UNIVERSITY STUDENT GROUPS

---

Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mühendislik Fakültesi, Maden Mühendisliği Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2019

Öğrenci: GİZEM ALTINKAYA KURTULMUŞ

Danışman: NURAY DEMİREL

Özet:

Although behavior-based safety has become a popular topic in recent decades, increasing the level of safety culture is still an emerging issue. Lack of awareness of safety culture among young professionals is of paramount concern not only for creating safe working environment but also for sustainable development. The main objective of this research study is to assess the safety culture among the students enrolled at Middle East Technical University (METU) and to identify potentials to be improved through management strategies and action plans. The research methodology followed in this study has two main stages as initial study and the main study. In the initial study phase, safety culture scale was developed through focus group meeting, pilot study, and expert consultations and in the main study phase, safety culture level among students was investigated through data gathering, exploratory factor analysis of the data, and interpretation of obtained results. In total, 471 students from METU participated in the study discussed herein. Research findings revealed that there is a great potential to equip students with enough knowledge and skills in the areas of emergency preparedness and response. The main novelty of this research study is that it is the pioneering study on safety culture assessment among university students in the country and it is expected to advance the current research frontiers in that area. It is also expected to start a discussion in the safety field in Turkey.