| Summary: | The researcher selected a quantitative cross-sectional design to test the concurrent validity of learning
potential and psychomotor ability by evaluating the relationships between mining machine operators’
learning potential and psychomotor ability as well as their work safety behaviour. Work safety behaviour
was considered indicative of their capability to operate a moving machine. The utilization of measuring
instruments capable of measuring their learning potential and psychomotor ability and measuring safety
behaviour by means of their safety score cards provided the required measurement data. The study
involved a quantitative investigation into the relationship between learning potential and psychomotor
ability as independent variables and safety behaviour as dependent variable.
De Vos, Strydom, Fouche and Delport (2002, p.79) defined quantitative research as “based on positivism,
which takes scientific explanation to be nomothetic. Its main aims are to measure the social world
objectively, to test hypotheses and to predict and explain human behaviour. A quantitative study may
therefore be defined as an inquiry into social or human problems based on testing a theory composed of
variables, measured with numbers and analysed with statistical procedures in order to determine whether
the predictive generalization of the theory holds true.”
The aim of the study was to determine the learning potential and psychomotor ability of mining machine
operators as well as compare the following sub-groups (based on the biographical variables): age, years’
experience, educational level and gender. The respondents’ work safety behaviour was measured and
the relationship between the two measures of the independent variables (learning potential and
psychomotor ability) and work safety behaviour determined. === Industrial & Organisational Psychology === (M.Comm. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology))
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