Department

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Dept. of Psychology

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Abstract

Big data is being used by organizations to identify trends and predict future safety incidents. However, analytics using big data relies heavily on data quality, which can be compromised by a lack of data variability. In the safety industry, the data reports most frequently analyzed include checklists that are filled out by managers and operators, and research is being attempted to link the variables from these reports to safety outcomes. A major obstacle is the reduced variability in these reports due to a phenomenon known as “pencil whipping.” Pencil whipping occurs when an employee completes a safety checklist during behavior-based safety observation without actually carrying out the work required (e.g., checking “safe” all the way down the checklist; Ludwig 2014). In order to run analyses that will create targeted interventions, organizations need to reduce pencil-whipping in their reports. This study will attempt to identify data markers of pencil whipping and will investigate the effects of pencil whipping on data variability and analysis.

Date

October 2019

Subject

Industrial and organizational psychology

Document Type

posters

Language

English

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Oct 26th, 1:05 PM Oct 26th, 1:50 PM

Suffering from Whiplash? The Effects of Pencil Whipping on Data Variability in the Safety Industry

Big data is being used by organizations to identify trends and predict future safety incidents. However, analytics using big data relies heavily on data quality, which can be compromised by a lack of data variability. In the safety industry, the data reports most frequently analyzed include checklists that are filled out by managers and operators, and research is being attempted to link the variables from these reports to safety outcomes. A major obstacle is the reduced variability in these reports due to a phenomenon known as “pencil whipping.” Pencil whipping occurs when an employee completes a safety checklist during behavior-based safety observation without actually carrying out the work required (e.g., checking “safe” all the way down the checklist; Ludwig 2014). In order to run analyses that will create targeted interventions, organizations need to reduce pencil-whipping in their reports. This study will attempt to identify data markers of pencil whipping and will investigate the effects of pencil whipping on data variability and analysis.