The uses of evidence in accident analysis by professionally versus scientifically trained investigators

The purpose of the study was to analyze how experts having extensive practical experience in accident analysis (professional experts) deal with evidence while analyzing traffic accidents in comparison with participants who had experience in accident analysis as well as graduate scientific education (scientific experts). The study was conducted by giving scientifically and professionally educated accident investigators a set of authentic evidence about an accident and by examining how the experts took the evidence concerning the accident, that is, how they considered, assessed and interpreted it. The results of the study furnished evidence that scientific education facilitates critical taking of evidence. Scientific experts were more critical in relation to the given evidence, challenging many assumptions implicit in the evidence and continuously requesting more information. This critical orientation was occasionally present in the case of the professional experts, but they only mentioned possible sources of faulty conclusions without articulating their criticisms extensively.

RésuméLe propos de cette étude était d’analyser la manière dont des experts possédant une expérience pratique consistante de l’analyse d’accidents (professionnels experts) gèrent les preuves dans l’analyse d’accidents de la circulation, en comparaison d’experts possédant surtout une formation académique scientifique de haut niveau. L’étude a consisté à présenter aux experts un panel d’authentiques preuves concernant un accident et à examiner la manière dont les experts prenaient en considération les preuves, les évaluaient et les interprétaient. Les résultats de l’étude ont montré que la formation scientifique facilite le regard critique sur les preuves. Les experts de formation scientifique se montraient plus critiques par rapport aux preuves fournies, remettant en question de nombreux postulats implicites liés aux preuves et sollicitant continûment davantage d’informations. Ce regard critique apparaissait occasionnellement chez les professionnels experts, mais uniquement à travers la mention de sources possibles de conclusions erronées sans que cela fasse l’objet d’élaboration particulière.