Level of Awareness of the BSMT students on the SOLAS Convention

Chapter III: Life Saving Appliances and Arrangements

Bihag, Jandel S.

Cabalida, Redgie

Cabanero, Reymark

ABSTRACT

Safety Of Life At Sea or otherwise known as SOLAS Convention is an

international maritime treaty in which establishes the safety measures in the

construction, equipments, and operations of all merchant ships. This convention

is consist of regulations and chapters that talks about the safety and survival of

the crews in case of emergency.

SOLAS Convention is considered as the most important of all international

conventions according to the DNV-GL which is a known international accredited

registrar and classification society headquartered in Norway. In order to ensure

the safety of the aspiring cadets in the future, we must measure the level of

awareness of the students on this convention.

 As such, this study aims to determine the level of awareness of the

Bachelor of Science in Marine Transportation students on the SOLAS Convention

in the University in Cebu which is located in Lapu-Lapu and Mandaue.

Specifically, it answers the following questions:

1. The demographic profile of the respondents in terms of:

1.1.Age

1.2. College Level

2. What sources of information used by the students to know about the SOLAS

Convention?

3. When do the students know about this SOLAS Convention;

4. What is the awareness of the students on the different life saving equipments

onboard the ship;

5. What intervention programs should be proposed for the students to have a

comprehension with regards of the SOLAS Convention Chapter III?

 The respondents of this study are the 2nd year Maritime Cadets which are

enrolled on the BSMT Department of the University in Cebu located in Lapu-Lapu

and Mandaue. The data analyzed in this study was to measure the level of

awareness of the students regarding the SOLAS Convention.

By knowing the level of awareness of the students on the SOLAS Convention

could be a way to let the students be aware on the different chapters and

regulations of this convention. This could also help them when they will be

onboard in the future.

 ACKNOWLODGEMENT

We would like to express our gratitude first and foremost to our GOD

ALMIGHTY for guiding us throughout this research and for giving us the

patience, determination, and hardwork to surpass the circumstances that we

encountered in conducting this research.

To our research instructor, Mr. Romel P. Atabay who gave his knowledge

and skills which helps us through the process of this research.

Our parents for supporting us in our needs in conducting this research

and for giving their kindness and polite understanding.

Our respondents who willingly participated in answering the

questionnaires which has been given to them.

INTRODUCTION

Rationale of the study

The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) is an

international maritime treaty in which establishes safety measures in the

construction, equipment, and operations of all merchant ships. This convention

includes a number of regulations under different chapters. Chapter III of this

convention talks about life saving appliances and arrangements.

However, despite of the gravity and importance of life saving protocols,

there are still a significant amount of errors that have been observed onboard. A

recent case of a Filipino seafarer that was man overboard without his shipmates

noticing it. The researcher believes that this could be avoided if the cadets are

constantly reminded of these safety protocols that are on the Maritime

Conventions in order for them to be fully aware of the importance of these

protocols when they will board on ships someday. Thus, leads the researchers

investigate the Level of Awareness of the BSMT students on the SOLAS

Convention Chapter III: Life Saving Appliances and Arrangements.

The readers will be provided such integral comprehension and knowledge

on how the SOLAS Convention: Chapter III should be properly and extensively

be observed and practiced by the cadets while they are still on the learning
process of their career. Life saving protocols is one of the most useful skills that

is needed to be a professional seafarer and is especially, during emergency

situation onboard ships.

Theoretical Background

This study is anchored on the theory of Abraham Maslow's (1943) Which

states that Hierarchy of Needs theory is comprised of a five-tier model of human

needs which depicted as hierarchal levels within a pyramid. These levels namely

psychological, safety, belongingness and love, esteem, and self-actualization

needs are grouped according to its importance. Psychological and safety needs

belongs to the basic needs which is named as the most important needs that a

person should satisfy first before progressing to higher level of needs. Safety is

one of the most integral and prominent factor every individual must attain and it

is very essential especially onboard because whenever you are going to do

anything you must keep in mind the "Safety First Policy" which is practiced by

the crews.

This theory is supported by Duval and Wicklund (1972) theory of Self-

Awareness which states that a given moment, a person can focus on the self or

the external environment. Focusing on the self enables self-evaluation, when

focused, people tend to compare the self with standards and then allows a

person to change its behavior in order to meet that standard. This theory
supports the study because in order to avoid danger onboard the ship, the crews

must be focused in order to be aware of the possible dangers which are present

while doing the job that is assigned to him/her.

According to Skiba (2011) in his Theory of Job Safety which state that job

safety is the interrelationship between people and work, equipments and

machinery, and the environment. Skiba also states that relationship which can

cause incidents and harmful working conditions are cause by combining the

people and the objective working environment for the purpose of production.

The relationship of the worker and the objective environment are not compatible

is one of the example which means that the person is either not qualified for the

job or objective parts of the system is not working that could lead to unsafe

conditions and minor incidents which could delay the production.

According to Xu and Xu (2017) in their Theory about Reliability which

divides reliability into two system namely the Repairable System which refers to

the systems that can be restored by component replacement or repair even if the

machine is on a operating state and the Irreparable System on the other hand

are systems that cannot be restored if it is on a operating state. Maintenance is

also divided into two namely the Corrective Maintenance which refers to the

restoring a system to the specified state when a fault occurs while Preventive
Maintenance is a type of maintenance which is done regularly to lessen the

likelihood of it failing and is performed while the equipments is still working.

Maintenance is vital onboard the ship due to the nature of the environment and

exposure of extreme weather conditions.

The Heinrich (1931) Theory about the 5 Domino on accident causation

talks about a standard model of health and safety within the workplace which is

used by the professionals. This theory works on the basis that if a domino falls, it

will most likely knock down others that are next to it which means that one

undesirable event that happens on the workplace could lead others and

eventually to an accident. This theory was further developed and modified by

Bird and Loftus on 1976 and they include the influence of management on the

accident causation and changed its sequence. But recently, the British Safety

Services (BSS) recognise that on 2010, the theory should be updated and

therefore developed the process further which shows that there are in fact six

stages of accident causation process instead of 5, placing the "External Factors"

at the very beginning of the process. The BSS believed that recognizing and

managing the "sixth domino" is vital to improve the performance and standards

in the world of Health and Safety.

 Drake (1937) in his Theory about Accident Proneness in which he states

that " Where the perception level is equal to or higher than the motor level, the

employee is relatively a safe worker. But where the perception level is lower than

the motor level, the employee is accident prone and his accident proneness

becomes greater as this difference increases.” He also believes that this theory is

applicable to all types of accidents. However, the obvious limitation of this theory

is the lack of consideration of individual's personality and contributing emotional

factors.

According to Ferrells Human Factor Theory, He incorporates multiple

causes of error by an individual and identifies the three general causes of

accidents namely overload, incompatibility, and improper activities. These three

causes are actually broad categories which contains several more specific causes.

Overload is the most complex of these three causes, it can further be broken

down into three subcategories. The first one is the emotional state of the

individual which includes the condition whether he/she is unmotivated or

agitated. Second, the capacity of the individual's physical and educational

background and lastly, the load of an individual which includes the difficulty of

the task, environment, and even the danger level of the task. Improper activities

is the simplest concept on this theory in which states that the person did not

know any better or, he/she knows that accident may result from his/her actions

but did it anyway. On the other hand, Incompatibility simply means that it
compasses both an incorrect response to a situation by an individual as well as

the environmental characteristic of his/her workplace.

Albert Ellis (2000) in his Attitude, Behavior, Condition Theory of Safety

states that attitude, behavior and condition of the employees are related to each

other. He states that work attitude does not only affect on how well you do the

job but also affect on how safe you are when you are doing it. Positive work

attitude maintains a safe workplace because people with positive thoughts

considers the outcome of his/her behavior while Negative wok attitude on the

other hand complains about everything including about having to practice safety

which less likely lead to unsafe work habits and accidents. Behavior in this theory

refers to the persons emotions such as aggression, happiness, and depression.

Negative work behavior such as bullying is a psychosocial hazard in which

potentially contribute to the persons health whether physically or emotionally.

Lastly, Condition to follow consequences are what happens after a behavior

which means that people who understands the potential consequences of their

actions, their behavior starts to change in order not to experience the

consequences because having a consequence could impact their social life. The

point is that people are motivated differently, thus understanding the motivations

for safety becomes important for long-term behavior change.

Statement of the Problem

This study aims to know the Level of Awareness of the BSMT

students on SOLAS Convention Chapter III which is about the Life Saving

Appliances and Arrangements.

Specifically, it seeks to address the following questions:

1. The demographic profile of the respondents in terms of:

1.1. Age

1.2. College Level

2. What sources of information used by the students to know about the

SOLAS Convention?

3. When do the students know about this SOLAS Convention;

4. What is the awareness of the students on the different life saving

equipments onboard the ship;

5. What intervention programs should be proposed for the students to

have a comprehension with regards of the SOLAS Convention Chapter III?

Significance of the Study

This study is beneficial to the students, instructors, researchers, and the

future researchers.

Students. This study will enable the students to be aware on the

importance of the different life saving appliances and arrangements which are

stated on the SOLAS Chapter III convention.

Instructors. The result of this study will enlightened the instructors to be

able to remind the students about the importance of knowing the different life

saving appliances and arrangements which are present onboard.

Researchers. This study let the researchers gather information which

leads them to the conclusion on the level of awareness of the students.

Future Researchers. The future researchers could use the result of this

study as the basis of their research and also they can make another study using

the results of this study.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

RESEARCH DESIGN

Having knowledge on the different SOLAS Chapters is essential to the

Maritime Students due to the nature of the job that they will face in the future.

However, the students these days pays a little attention to this matter due to the

fact that they are still studying and think that knowing this chapters would not

help them in their current situation. This study was conducted in order to find

out the Level of Awareness of the students SOLAS Convention specifically the

Chapter III which is about the life saving appliances and arrangements.

RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT

The study was conducted on a University in Cebu near the Lapu-Lapu and

Mandaue area. This is a non-sectarian school located in A.C. Cortes Avenue,

Looc, Mandaue City. This school was established on May 21, 1995 and the only

qualified Maritime school in the province of Cebu. The university has nine

colleges namely: College of Maritime Engineering, College of Business and

Accountancy, College of Allied Engineering, College of Customs Administration,

College of Hotel and Restaurant Management, College of Criminology, College of

Nursing, and College of Teacher Education, And most of all the College of

Marine Transportation, where the participants of the study were taken.

RESEARCH RESPONDENTS

The respondents of this study are the second year maritime students who

are enrolled in Bachelor of Science in Marine Transportation (BSMT) school year

2019-2020 on the University in Cebu. The researchers decided to take only 100

second year BSMT students which are from the sections BSMT-2A,BSMT-

2B,BSMT-2C with 99 of them are boys and 1 girl. The researchers agreed to use

the convenient sampling technique which is a type of non-probability sampling

method in which the sample is taken from a group of people that are easy to

contact or to reach. There are no other criteria to this sampling method except

that people are available and willing to participate.

RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS

The researchers will be using survey questionnaires for its data gathering.

In the study, the researchers will adapt a survey questionnaire to measure the
level of awareness of the respondents on the Chapter III of the SOLAS

Convention.

RESEARCH PROCEDURE

The researchers formulate a letter of permission to conduct the research

study and was submitted to the College of Marine Transportation. After, all the

respondents were given a set of survey questionnaires to gather data based on

their profile, the level of awareness of the students on the different life saving

appliances present onboard ships and when do they know about the SOLAS

Convention. The respondents were chosen only from the sections that are listed

on the letter of permission.

Treatment of Data

The statistical method used in analyzing and interpreting data is the

Frequency and Percentage distribution to determine the level of awareness on

the Chapter III of the SOLAS Convention. These were used to determine the

following: the profile of the respondents, time of orientation of the SOLAS

Convention, and the awareness of the students on the different life saving

equipments present onboard ships. The frequency counting of their response

were treated below:

 ∑𝑥
𝑥̅ = ∗ 100
𝑁

where:

𝑥̅ = is the mean frequency of the responses

∑ 𝑥 = is the sum of the frequencies

N = total population or respondents

∗ 100 = multiply by 100 to get the percentage

Definition of Terms

 The researchers operationally define the following terms for better

understanding of the readers.

 SOLAS refers to the international convention which tackles about the

safety onboard the ship.

 BSMT Students refers to students who took up Bachelor of Science Major

in Marine Transportation.

 Life Saving Appliances refers to the equipments that are present onboard

ships which are used for survival in case of emergency

Bibliography>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

(<<<<<<<<<<<<<<Text>>>>>>>>>>>)
Appendices >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

(<<<<<<<<Text>>>>>>>)