DECISION-MAKING DURING A SIMULATED MINE FIRE ESCAPE

Forty-eight workers who had escaped large underground coal-mine fires were interviewed using an opera-ended protocol. This information, and the actual experiences of one eight-person mine-section crew who escap ed from a fire, were used to construct an 18-frame (page) table-top si mulation exercise, which was then field tested with 134 miners. The ex ercise is a research tool that measures miners' proficiency in the inf ormation-gathering and decision-making skills related to escaping from a mine fire. It also helps miners to learn and practice these cogniti ve skills. The exercise was found to be valid and reliable. All miners reported that the exercise was authentic and would help them to remem ber important information. The exercise total score, and all but two i tem scores, significantly discriminated among miners with different le vels of training. The two items that did not discriminate dealt with w hether or not to abandon a helpless fellow miner. When the exercise to tal score data were pooled, only 13.6% of the miners achieved a desira ble score of 90% mastery or greater. The simulation is important becau se it teaches and assesses critical judgment and decision-making skill s that are rarely addressed in miner training.