Safety Behaviour in the Laboratory among University Students
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Abstract
This is a quantitative study on safety at science laboratories at universities. Specifically, this study involved a sample randomly selected 361 undergraduates from five public universities in Malaysia. The study aimed to (i) examine how safety knowledge and safety motivation directly affect safety behaviour in laboratories among students, and (ii) explore the mediating effect of safety commitment on the relationship between safety knowledge, safety motivation and safety behaviour among students while working in the laboratories. Data collected through a questionnaire was then analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics and SEM SmartPLS 3.0. The findings indicated that safety knowledge and safety motivation directly affected safety behaviour among students in the laboratory. Safety commitment had also mediated the relationship between safety knowledge, safety motivation, and safety behaviour among students in the laboratory. The mediation effect of safety commitment contributed more than the direct effect of safety motivation and safety behaviour. Safety commitment was an essential element in enhancing safety motivation and safety behaviour among students in the laboratory. The university management should, therefore, give importance and allow the participation of the Student Representative Council to represent the voice and commitment of students to enhance laboratory safety. These findings also affirmed that the combination of the subjective norm (safety motivation) and the intention (safety commitment) as in the Theory of Planned Behaviour had contributed to the knowledge of behavioural science. Therefore, for future research, it is deemed necessary that safety motivation be examined intrinsically and extrinsically in order to identify and assess the types of safety motivation that might effectively affect student safety behaviour in the laboratory.
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