Does the education given by the nation's human factors graduate training programs meet the skill and knowledge needs of today's employers? Can the supply of trained human factors specialists be expected to keep pace with the demand? What are the characteristics, employment settings, gender distribution, and salaries of human factors specialists?
These and other questions were posed by the committee as it designed mail-in and computer-aided telephone surveys used to query human factors specialists. The committee evaluates its findings and makes recommendations aimed at strengthening the profession of human factors.
This book will be useful to educators as an aid in evaluating their graduate training curricula, employers in working with graduate programs and enhancing staff opportunities for continuing education, and professionals in assessing their status in relation to their colleagues.
- Human Factors Specialists' Education and Utilization
- Copyright
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Contents
- Summary
- SELECTED FINDINGS
- Characteristics and Use of Human Factors Specialists
- Type of Employer
- Focus of Work
- Work History
- Salary Received
- Self-Perception of Professional Identity
- Perceived Importance of Human Factors to Projects
- The Training of the Supervisors of Human Factors Specialists
- The Interactions of Human Factors Specialists
- The Nature of Human Factors Work
- Personal Characteristics of Specialists
- The Education of Human Factors Specialists
- Where were Education and Training Obtained?
- How Did Specialists Perceive the Quality of Their Formal Education?
- What Deficiencies Did Supervisors Report in Specialist Training?
- Characteristics of the Education Programs
- The Supply and Demand of Human Factors Specialists
- CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
- 1—Introduction
- BACKGROUND
- The Human Factors Specialist
- Origins of the Study
- Issues
- OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
- ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY
- 2—SURVEY METHODOLOGY
- THE COMPUTER-ASSISTED TELEPHONE INTERVIEW SURVEY
- Questionnaire Development
- Sampling
- Interviewing
- THE MAIL-IN QUESTIONNAIRE
- Questionnaire Development
- Sampling
- Cooperation Rate
- Quality of Data
- 3—Characteristics and Utilization of Human Factors Specialists
- THE WORK SETTING
- Type of Employer
- Focus of Work
- Hours Worked Per Week
- Work History
- Salary Received
- ROLE OF HUMAN FACTORS IN THE WORK SETTING
- Human Factors Specialist or Something Else?
- Importance of Human Factors to Projects
- Supervisor Background In and Knowledge of Human Factors
- SUPERVISION AND INTERACTION
- Span of Supervision
- Profile of Supervisory Tasks
- Interactions With Others
- THE NATURE OF THE WORK
- CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN FACTORS SPECIALISTS
- Highest Academic Degree
- Age, Gender, and Ethnic Origin
- 4—The Education of Human Factors Specialists
- SCOPE AND QUALITY OF EDUCATION
- Where Do We Learn What We Do?
- Quality of the Educational Experience
- The Human Factors Specialists' Perspective
- The Perspective of Employers of Human Factors Specialists
- 5—Supply and Demand of Human Factors Specialists
- SUPPLY
- DEMAND
- RELATIONSHIP OF SUPPLY TO DEMAND
- 6—Conclusions and Recommendations
- CONCLUSIONS
- Job Definition
- Skills and Knowledge
- RECOMMENDATIONS
- Appendix A—Telephone Survey of Human Factors Specialists
- HUMAN FACTORS QUESTIONNAIRE
- Appendix B—Mail-In Questionnaire on Graduate Human Factors Programs
- SURVEY RESEARCH LABORATORY UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS HUMAN FACTORS SURVEY UNIVERSITY QUESTIONNAIRE
- Appendix C—Data Base Availability
- HUMAN FACTORS SPECIALISTS SURVEY
- HUMAN FACTORS SURVEY—UNIVERSITY QUESTIONNAIRE
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