There are many similarities between the methodology and performance evaluation in organizational safety programs and university safety courses. Specifically, failures are detrimental to the individual and require comprehensive investigation to identify root causes for corrective action and prevention. In a broader perspective, the manager of the safety program must act as a role model for workers; similarly, a course instructor should demonstrate the behavior and ethics desired in classroom students.
Just as the occupational safety field is adopting innovative analytical methods and systems design approaches to foster continuous improvement, these theories and techniques should be taught and modeled in the university classroom. There is very limited research literature focusing on continuous improvement techniques in university safety courses. Based on study outcomes described in Academically Adrift (Aram & Roksa 2011), informal post-midterm exam surveys of undergraduate indicated a general agreement that student learning time and effort was far less than assumed by the instructor. These realizations lead to a two-year classroom experiment whereby students were graded on a variety of learning behaviors. Early results were very insightful and evolved into a new approach to course improvement, which led to regular semester changes, based on the previous semester's study outcomes. The new course assignment was termed a "course binder," and was graded subsequently or during midterm examinations. These new course performance analytics, in addition to student feedback and feedback by internship site supervisors (safety professionals asked about the course binder idea), are used to make regular improvements to course assignments, delivery of topics, and course curriculum.
