response must have been a little higher because some of the email
addresses sent to prospective respondents were outdated or
incorrect, hence somewhat reducing the sample size to less than
400.
The questionnaire was designed to seek the views of safety
personnel employed by large construction companies through
two questions. Question 1 was designed to get information
about construction companies' strategies relative to the
achievement of “learning” in safety training. It asked “how do
you achieve and reinforce ‘learning’ in worker safety training?”
Question 2 sought to clarify the ways of handling language
problems for non-English speakers while training them for
safety. It asked “How do you solve language problems for
non-English speakers while training them for safety?” The
eighteen sub-questions in Question 1 and eight sub-questions in
Question 2 can be seen in Figs. 2 and 3, respectively. These
sub-questions were rated by the respondents on a scoring
system of 0–4, where 0 = never, 1 = seldom, 2 = sometimes,
3 = often and 4 = always. The average score was calculated
automatically by the ‘rating average’ tool of SurveyMonkey
(http://www.surveymonkey.com).
The characteristics of the respondents were also sought to
better analyze and interpret the results. The respondents of the
survey were mostly safety coordinators or safety managers.
According to the American Society of Safety Engineers (2013),
these individuals play an important role in training sessions since
they are actively involved in developing and implementing
methods to control hazards on construction sites.
The responses were grouped by annual turnover, size of
employment force, age of the company, union membership,
type of construction undertaken (building vs. civil works), and
by location. The average age of responding companies was
found to be 63 years. This result is not surprising because
several years of experience is a key factor in the growth of a
construction company. It must indeed have taken several years
for a company to be listed in ENR's top 400 contractors list.
The average annual revenue of the companies was found to be
$1104 million. Again, it is expected for the top companies to
have very high annual revenue since the ENR top 400
contractors list includes companies with the highest annual
revenue. The average number of employees in the responding
companies was found to be 5319. Table 1 summarizes the
characteristics of respondent firms.
The respondent companies were also grouped as union and
nonunion. The union status of a company was found to be
important since union companies may have different safety
training strategies than nonunion companies. According to
American Rights at Work (2012), unions fight for workers'
health and safety and as a result, union members are more likely
to be well-trained about workplace hazards and risks. Additionally