Teaching-based Safety Training: Effects on Safety Performance in Niger Delta Oil and Gas Firms

This study was carried out to determine the impact of teaching-style safety training on safety performance in selected oil and gas companies in Niger Delta, Nigeria. Safety performance was operationalized using safety compliance, safety participation and accident occurrence. The study adopted inferential research design. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to sample few companies from the population while Taro Yamane sample size formula was used to estimate 400 as sample size. Structured questionnaire, designed based on five-point Likert scale, was used for data collection. Regression and structural equation model were used for the data analyses. The results of regression and structural equation analyses revealed that teaching-based safety training has positive and significant impact on safety compliance (β = 0.263 p-value = 0.000 < 0.05) but positive and insignificant impact on safety participation and accident occurrence (β = 0.054 p-value = 0.534 > 0.05, β = 0.074 p-value = 0.371> 0.05, respectively). The results also revealed that only safety compliance has complete mediating effect in relationship between teaching-based safety training and accident occurrence. It was concluded that teaching-based safety training has partial impact on leading safety performance (safety compliance) but no significant impact on lagging safety performance (accident occurrence) and recommended that management of oil and gas firms should utilize complete safety training package for their workers to ensure sustainable level of safety performance.