Safety leadership in the teaching laboratories of electrical and electronic engineering departments at Taiwanese Universities

IntroductionSafety has always been one of the principal goals in teaching laboratories. Laboratories cannot serve their educational purpose when accidents occur. The leadership of department heads has a major impact on laboratory safety, so this study discusses the factors affecting safety leadership in teaching laboratories.MethodThis study uses a mail survey to explore the perceived safety leadership in electrical and electronic engineering departments at Taiwanese universities.ResultsAn exploratory factor analysis shows that there are three main components of safety leadership, as measured on a safety leadership scale: safety controlling, safety coaching, and safety caring. The descriptive statistics also reveals that among faculty, the perception of department heads' safety leadership is in general positive. A two-way MANOVA shows that there are interaction effects on safety leadership between university size and instructor age; there are also interaction effects between presence of a safety committee and faculty gender and faculty age.Impact on IndustryIt is therefore necessary to assess organizational factors when determining whether individual factors are the cause of differing perceptions among faculty members. The author also presents advice on improving safety leadership for department heads at small universities and at universities without safety committees.