Development and Validation of a Safety Attitude Scale for Coal Miners in China

Xiang Wu, Wenwen Yin, Chunlin Wu and Yuanlong Li
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Xiang Wu: School of Engineering and Technology, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China
Wenwen Yin: Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Chunlin Wu: School of Economics and Management, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
Yuanlong Li: School of Engineering and Technology, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 12, 1-12

Abstract: Safety attitude is of vital importance to accident prevention, and the high accident rate in the coal mining industry makes it urgent to undertake research on coal miners’ safety attitude. However, the current literature still lacks a valid and reliable safety attitude measurement scale for coal miners, which stands as a barrier against their safety attitude improvement. In this study, a scale is developed that can be used to measure coal miners’ safety attitude. The preliminary scale was based on an extended literature review. Empirical data were then collected from 725 coal miners using the preliminary scale. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were undertaken to validate and improve the scale. The final scale, which consists of 17 items, contains four dimensions: management safety commitment, team safety climate, fatalism and work pressure. Results show that this safety attitude scale can effectively measure the safety attitude of coal miners, showing high psychological measurement validity. This paper contributes to the occupational safety research by developing the factor structure and indicator system of coal miners’ safety attitude, thus providing more profound interpretation of this crucial construct in the safety research domain. The measurement scale serves as an important tool for safety attitude benchmarking among different coal mining enterprises and, thus, can boost the overall safety improvement of the whole industry. These findings can facilitate improvement of both theories and practices related to occupational safety attitude.

Keywords: safety attitude; measurement scale; coal miners; exploratory factor analysis; confirmatory factor analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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