Page 76 - OHS, September 2024

INCIDENT INVESTIGATIONS
safety agency. Twenty of the respondents self-identified as Public Safety and twenty identified as Other. Three respondents identified themselves as Industry. These three individuals have been excluded from the presentation of the findings below, as there is little infor- mational value in such a small sample size. The 40 investigators whose data are presented had been in their current investigative role with the agency for an average of 5.47 years (SD = 5.11).
Materials and Methods
A subject matter expert (SME) helped the lead author develop and refine the materials for the investigation activity. The SME had 29 years of experience in police investigations, followed by eight years in OHS investigations.
Respondents began the activity with an overview of a fatal inci- dent that had occurred in a remote location. They learned that they were in the role of Primary Investigator (PI), with two investigating officers reporting to them. Both officers had equivalent years of investigation experience, but one of the officers had a public safety background and the other had an industry background.
Participants then read the event summary about a boom boat which is used in logging operations. “This boom boat began taking on water,” the event summary read. “The boat operator radioed for help. The boat sunk shortly after the distress call. It is believed that an excess amount of water in the bilge caused the boat to sink. The boat operator perished in the event.” A photo of the boat accom-
panied the summary.
Respondents then chose the next best step in the investigation
from two options that addressed why there was excess water in the bilge, one offered by the Public Safety officer and one offered by the Industry officer. The two options were of equal value as a next step. To ensure that the identity of the officer — rather than the content of the option — was driving the results, the options were counterbalanced so that half of the participants received the first option from the Public Safety officer and half of the participants received the same opinion from the Industry officer, and vice versa for the second opinion. The final step of the activity was to answer the manipulation check ques- tions, which asked respondents to identify the background of the two investigating officers, the type of event (e.g., near miss, fatality or se- vere injury) and whether they were familiar with this type of event.
It was predicted that respondents would show bias by choosing the option offered by the investigator with the same background as themselves (i.e., Public Safety or Industry). Too few Industry investigators responded to test how their responses differed from the Public Safety Investigators.
Results
Respondents were biased by the identity of the officer providing the information but not as predicted. For clarity, if investigators made their judgments based solely on the evidence — regardless of the source — the results would show a relatively consistent pattern
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