Training professionals

Its been a tough week. I've been running BOHS module M201 this week with 15 delegates, none of whom have had any experience of the topics covered. The problem with the course is that there is so much to cover, particularly when the concepts are new. And as I discussed in a previous post quite a bit of the material we have to cover is not really relevant to modern practice.

M201 isn't the only BOHS module where we have this problem. Most of them have too much content for a one week course where the exam is taken at the end of the week. This is compounded by the examinations which concentrates on testing the candidates' memory rather than understanding of principles and their ability to apply them.

The modules are intended to allow trainee occupational hygienists and other people carrying out some aspect of occupational hygiene as part of their job to develop knowledge and skills they need to carry out the job competently. This requires more than just knowledge of facts.

"Bloom's taxonomy" is a well known concept used by educationalists. It was developed in 1956, by a group of educational psychologists led by Benjamin Bloom. Its a way of looking at the different types of learning, setting them out in a hierarchy with six levels, often set out in the form of a pyramid. The lowest level is "knowledge", involving learning facts which are then recalled or recognised and the highest level, is "evaluation", where judgements are made about the validity and quality of information.

The way the BOHS modules are currently set up we are mainly developing and testing knowledge with much less emphasis on the higher level skills. I would contend that in the modern world of work professionals need to absorb fewer facts and develop the ability to find the information they need, understand it (i.e. comprehensive) and then be able to apply it and use it effectively (i.e. application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation).

There are two dimensions to knowledge - breadth and depth. During a short duration course there is only so much we can expect learners to absorb. In simple terms, if we are aiming from breadth we can't expect knowledge to be too deep. Its only reasonable to expect depth of knowledge in a narrow range of topics. The BOHS syllabii require coverage of a lot of topics - i.e. breadth, but the exam questions are such that deep knowledge of each topic is required. This is a problems that needs to be addressed.

As I see it, there are a number of specific problems that need to be addressed. Currently, the module structure means that trainee operational hygienists are expected to have deep knowledge of:

• health effects of substances that are rarely, if ever, encountered in practice. How many hygienists in modern industry need to know that a symptom of excessive exposure to vanadium pentoxide is a green tongue? How many of us have actually seen one? Do we really need to know that arsene exposure can lead to “port wine urine”? How many of us have ever seen “wrist drop” caused by excessive exposure to lead? Just think of how much exposure to lead would be required for that to happen. These are things that candidates taking BOHS exams are expected to know. They are easy questions to write, but are they really relevant?

• sampling methods for a wide range of specific substances - even though this information can easily be looked up in the standard methods which have now been made freely available on the Internet by HSE and NIOSH. I think it is reasonable to expect operational hygienists to be familiar with the basic methods, but they should be encouraged to check specific details in the written method rather than rely on their memory with the consequent risk of making a mistake,
  details of analytical procedures. A long time ago the person taking a sample may have performed the analysis. With the exception of asbestos, that is rarely the case, yet our examination system persists in requiring trainee operational hygienists to learn details on analytical techniques. I can see the value in knowing what methods are appropriate for the main classes of substances we have to sample, but not for knowing the specific procedures adopted by the analyst,

• a large number of equations – is this really necessary in the real world of work? If an equation is needed for a calculation it is easy enough to look it up (if necessary BOHS provide handbook of common equations that can fit in a pocket or electronic version that could be downloaded onto a laptop, PDA or mobile phone.) They need to be able to select the appropriate equation (not as easy as it seems) and be able to use it. Wouldn't it be better to test that than the ability to memorise it. Most colleges and other bodies (including the Institute of Acoustics) provide equation sheets for exams these days.

• For some exams candidates are expected to be able to remember specific exposure limits for chemicals, and details from other standards (including remembering exposure limit values for non-ionising radiation and the TLVs for heat stress) and other similar information such as the wording of R phrases. All of these things can be easily located and looked up. Knowing where to find this information and being able to understand it is important but why does a trainee hygienist need to memorise it? In reality it will be forgotten a few days after the exam unless the information is used regularly. Again, surely it is more appropriate to expect the trainee to learn how to find information, understand it and use it.

In my working life I've seen major changes in the ability to access technical information. 30 years ago everything was printed and to obtain information you had to have access to books, journals, other documents. This meant you couldn't carry around information easily and important information which needed to be accessed quickly had to be memorised. Today things are different. Its much easier to access to information via the Internet or electronic documents that can be kept on mobile devices such as laptops, PDAs and even mobile phones. In addition, the amount of information we need to refer to continues to grow. Human memory has limited capacity, and our knowledge will rarely be completely up to date.

Currently we expect trainee hygienists to memorise large amounts of information and be able to reproduce it. There is little emphasis on interpretation, application and the higher level cognitive skills. In my view it would be much better if we changed our emphasis to a new approach where we required trainees to be able to :

• understand basic principles


• have knowledge of a smaller number of key facts


• know what information sources are available and which are relevant


• know how to search for information


• be able to interpret the information.

To support this the BOHS and Faculty could look at

• providing guidance on information sources


• making available reference material such as key equations and principles in a handbook/manual, probably in an electronic format that could be downloaded and which would be relatively easy to keep up to date.