Research and Evaluation

Effective field safety and anti-harassment training and tools to design welcoming field campaigns that include risk assessments are not widely available. To date, little research has been conducted on the effectiveness of such training. To this end, ADVANCEing FieldSafety will be conducting research on the effectiveness of our training program and evaluating the course and toolkit content.

Research Plan:

We will be working directly with field research teams, who have participated in the ADVANCEing FieldSafety training program, to see how the training program affects field culture. We will address the following research questions: 

1. How does exposure to field safety training that includes risk analysis, bystander intervention, collaborative leadership techniques, and skills to respond to unhelpful behaviours affect training participants' attitudes, knowledge, skills, and behaviours? 
2. How does the behaviour of participants who have taken the ADVANCEing FieldSafety training change following the training program in reference to addressing field safety, team culture, and anti-harassment practices? 
3. What contextual factors influence the effectiveness of the ADVANCEing FieldSafety training? 
4. What ways and to what degree do ADVANCEing FieldSafety practices affect field team members' feelings of support and safety during fieldwork? 

We will track the learning process of field research teams from pre-MOOC to post field campaign (figure 1) by conducting surveys, interviews, and focus groups; evaluating the training program resources; and through direct observation and debriefing sessions. This information will help inform the research questions and the effectiveness of the ADVANCEing FieldSafety training program.

Evaluation Plan

The evaluation plan is focused on addressing whether advancing field safety has achieved its goals, which are to: 

1. Increase the competency of field teams and individuals related to safety, anti-harassment, positive field culture, and risk management through effective training and active learning, including role-play activities and reflections. 
2. Enable effective preparation of field teams for field campaigns through the creation and broad dissemination of an easily implementable ADVANCEing FieldSafety toolkit. 
3. Broaden participation in field based work, within and beyond the geosciences, by supporting a culture change towards a welcoming environment for all scientists, particularly early-career scientists and those from varied backgrounds. 
4. Research the effectiveness of the ADVANCEing FieldSafety training and tool kit. 

The evaluation will collect data from all MOOC participants, including those who complete only the course certificate (e.g., MOOC-only participants) and the ADVANCEing FieldSafety certificate (e.g., MOOC and debrief participants) as well as newly trained facilitators for debriefing sessions and recruited field research teams.