About two years ago at Krastsvetmet, we took on a challenge regarding industrial safety certification preparation. It was a pain point for students; they struggled to understand Federal Law No. 116 and, in their feedback, overwhelmingly asked for an HSE course that would help them grasp the essence of the subject.
I certainly wouldn't want to provide advertising or anti-advertising in my article. So, let's look at the facts we encountered. How is industrial safety certification preparation currently handled?
The primary resource is Olimpoks or other apps. We used it and still use it, but as a supplementary tool. Krastsvetmet's experience showed that only 60% of employees who prepared via Olimpoks passed the EPT certification on their first attempt. The rest had to retake it. We started thinking: why is that?
If our goal is personnel competence, then our actions should be aimed at ensuring that students first acquire knowledge and understand the essence of the subject. Only then should they reinforce and demonstrate this knowledge by passing the EPT test.
For those who teach, the most common form of assessment is the beloved multiple-choice question. Why is it so popular?
What's missing from this list? A small detail like educational value. And another far-from-minor detail — understanding the essence of the subject. If our goal is simply testing and assessment, then it's a great choice. But here's the catch. In principle, multiple-choice tests only show... how well a student can take multiple-choice tests. You would hardly trust someone to fly a helicopter just because they answered 100 questions about helicopter history. Furthermore, the risks of vulnerability to accidents at HPFs increase when everyone seems to have scraped through the certification, yet the understanding of the subject remains non-existent.
That's why the idea came up to create the A1 module in a video lecture format, incorporating all the answers to the EPT questions. But that wasn't the main point! The main thing was to consider all the end users of this product. The subject had to become clear to the majority. Translating the 10 parts of the A1 area into plain language, we set this exact goal and, according to student feedback, achieved it. After watching the video lecture, feel free to practice as much as you want on the EPT tests. At this point, students who have grasped the essence will pass any test, regardless of whether it's from EPT, Olimpoks, or other apps. This is proven by the certification results: within a year, the first-attempt pass rate for the A1 area at Krastsvetmet increased from 60% to 80-90%.
But you know what the main result was for me personally? It was that by changing the approach to training, we managed to significantly make my colleagues' lives easier and show that HSE training can be simple and understandable for most of them.
Here is what Krastsvetmet employees write in their feedback on the course:
Maria Mironova
The course is very interesting. Reading all these topics on my own would have been much harder. Thank you, Svetlana, for your hard work!
Ruslan Mulagaleev
I really liked the course. Thank you for developing the topic and presenting it this way. I never thought an "industrial safety" course wouldn't scare me.
Lyubov Troshkova
I LOVED the course! Thanks to the corporate university and Svetlana (she's right in my heart!)))
Kirill Pevnev
Excellent course. A lot of effort and time went into its preparation. Excellent presentation of the material!
In my work, I strive to start from the needs and "pain points" of the target audience I work with. I will talk about this in one of my next articles. See you in the Expert Blog!