Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
because they are little known. Thus, experienced operators who had taken
part in these training programs did not know the procedures for recover-
ing these incidents, which could prove fatal (Vidal-Gomel et al., 2009).
From there, work analysis becomes an essential tool to identify the
difficulties of operators in real-world work situations, in order to ensure
the external consistency of training programs (Delgoulet, 2001) and to
design training systems that make it possible to achieve levels of perfor-
mance that are satisfactory to both organizations and stakeholders.
Work analysis as a tool and an object for training
This conceptual turn has also made it possible to apprehend the relation-
ship with training considering, on the one hand, work analysis as an object
for training, and on the other hand, ergonomic interventions as formative
actions (Dugué et al., 2010). These two aspects are also justified by the
fact that ergonomists, at the turn of the twenty-irst century, are subject to
an increasingly pressing need to go beyond a 'classical' process of diag-
nosis and its related recommendations. The rise of ergonomic interven-
tions coupled with design projects, the need to accompany transformative
action through the implementation of participatory design practices, and
the wish to ensure the sustainability of ergonomic action have all led
ergonomists increasingly toward the field of training design.
The stake here is to depart, once and for all, from the position of the
ergonomist as an expert of the situations and solutions that should be
constructed, so as to accompany various audiences toward a practice of
analyzing work activity, as a part of training systems geared by and for
action (Teiger and Montreuil, 1996; Six-Touchard and Falzon, this volume).
Thus, 'relay' people within the company can be sensitized or trained
(e.g. through close supervision by line management) in order to ensure the
continuity of ergonomic action, which is primed in the ergonomic inter-
vention, usually with no guarantee of sustainability. This is the case for
the participatory approaches that may be used for the sustained preven-
tion of health disorders (Gaudart et al., 2012).
These training programs aim to transform the initial representations
of trainees, by emphasizing the value of real-world work as opposed to
prescribed work, by opening the space of possibilities in the interpreta-
tion of situations (from a self-centric approach to a collective and shared
approach). Beyond this work on representations, these training programs
all claim to contribute to transforming representations of work situations,
by providing stakeholders of these situations with suitable tools. In this
case, training programs and ergonomic interventions are intertwined and
feed off one another.
