Safety education for chemical engineering students in Hong Kong: Development of HAZOP Study teaching module

An animated software teaching module was developed to teach a process safety technique to chemical engineering students in Hong Kong. In order to stimulate students’ interest, the module was designed to actively engage them through decision making based on a visualized process. The development consisted of three phases, with each phase extending the module based on evaluations by local and international peers and student users through iterative action research cycles. The process involved close collaboration between an academic department and a central educational development unit. Several evaluations were carried out including a software usability test, peer evaluation using both academic and industrialist feedback, a number of student evaluations from around the world, including Hong Kong, Australia, France and Northern Ireland. Results of these evaluations suggested that the module could be used as an effective learning tool in different contexts.

Research highlights▶ A software module was developed to teach process safety techniques to students in HK. ▶ The module was designed to engage students through decision making process. ▶ Usability test and a peer evaluation from academic and industry were conducted. ▶ Results suggested that the module can be an effective learning tool in many contexts.