Developing an Online Training on the Ship Safety Manual for Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard

At Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard (PHNSY), the Ship Safety Manual sets important guidelines for keeping equipment and personnel safe. PHNSY engineers must be trained in these guidelines, but the current instruction fails to keep its learners engaged. The purpose of this instructional design project was to explore using an online instruction to teach the Ship Safety Manual to engineers at PHNSY. This online instruction consisted of text-based modules that utilized figures, practice quizzes, and discussion boards on the website Canvas. It also incorporates interactivity, and allows learners to learn at their own pace. Participants were PHNSY engineers who were required to be trained in the Ship Safety Manual. A total of 12 participants volunteered and completed a pre-test, the online instruction, a post-test, and an instruction evaluation in that order. They were allowed to complete these components at their own pace within a four-week period.

While pre-test scores ranged from 9% to 92%, post-test scores ranged from 56% to 100%. The most improvement was seen from participants with two or less years of experience at PHNSY. In terms of confidence, 11 out of 12 experienced an increase in confidence level. The online instruction was able to increase both test scores and confidence in the participants, especially for those with less work experience. However, the scores of new employees did not meet PHNSY’s standards. Therefore, the online instruction seems better suited to be a refresher tool for current employees rather than a training tool for new hires.