Predicting unsafe behaviors at nuclear power plants: An integration of Theory of Planned Behavior and Technology Acceptance Model

Unsafe behaviors, including both errors and violations, have been identified as key contributors to accidents at nuclear power plants. However, the mechanisms behind such unsafe behaviors are not fully understood. This study aimed to investigate how workers' attitude and perception factors would predict errors and violations at nuclear power plants by proposing and validating an unsafe behavior model. The proposed model applied the Theory of Planned Behavior as the ground theoretical model and added factors from Technology Acceptance Model to capture workers' perception of work regulations. To examine the validity of the proposed model, a total of 178 questionnaires were distributed at two nuclear power plants in China and 171 valid questionnaires were returned. The Structured Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis indicated that the proposed model fitted the data well. The results showed that perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness in following work regulations contributed to a positive attitude, which helped reduce the occurrence of both errors and violations. Moreover, errors were further affected by subjective norm while violations were not. Perceived behavior control was not a significant factor of either errors or violations. These findings suggest that to reduce errors and violations, policymakers should focus on methods to improve the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of work regulations, and promote a positive attitude towards safety.