An Analysis of the Effects of Demographic Variables and Perceptions on the Safety Reporting Behavior in Collegiate Flight Programs

The purposes of this study were to assess the perceptions of respondents on scale items that measure safety culture in collegiate aviation programs in the United States (U.S.) and establish levels of interactions between demographic variables and safety reporting behavior. A convenience sample (n = 259) of flight students inclusive of those who are flight instructors from five collegiate aviation programs in the U.S. responded to scale items adopted from the Collegiate Aviation Perceptions of Safety Culture Assessment Survey (CAPSCAS) online. The highest perception mean score was on Safety Fundamentals (4.2) and the lowest perception mean score was on Safety Value (3.5). A Kruskal-Wallis (H) test suggested a statistically significant difference in mean rankings of frequency of self-reporting safety occurrences among age groups. A post-hoc test using a Mann-Whitney test revealed that the below 20-age group had a higher mean rank to self- report safety occurrences than the 31-40 age group. A Jonckheere- Terpestra test suggested a significant trend in the study: as age groupings increased, the median frequency of safety reporting by collegiate aviation respondents decreased. The relatively low mean perception score of Safety Value (SV) may present a concern to the managers of collegiate aviation programs, since SV is an important component of leadership commitment to safety and accident prevention. The study underscored the importance of demographic variables such as age and its influence when drawing up strategies to familiarize flight students with the process, procedures, and accessibility to safety reporting systems in collegiate aviation programs