The effect of Safety Management practices on the Construction Sites workers

in the case of Adama Bole sub-city

Genet Feyisa Hirko

Advisor: Dr. Habtamu Teka

A Proposal Submitted to PG Office

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for The Degree of Master’s in

Project Management

Office of Graduate Studies

Harambe University

January , 2023

Adama, Ethiopia`

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 ABSTRACT
Personal protective equipment is one of the preventive methods to protect workers from harmful
contacts. However, the utilization of this equipment is very poor in developing countries like
Ethiopia due to shortage of safety material, lack of training, Lack of safety practice, poor
management, improper utilization and Poor Control over construction sites by regulatory
bodies. To overcome this challenge, Construction Site workers requires effective safety
management practices. Thus, this research aims to develop easy safety management system by
utilization and usage of safety equipment during construction work. Therefore, to achieve the
study objective, ground+2 and above building projects are proposed as a population, and the
sample size is the ongoing projects which are 50 during the data collection period. Data will be
collected through questionnaires, observation, and interviews from the selected construction
companies and could be analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to draw results and
conclusions. To analyze data IBM SPSS statics and Microsoft Excel would be used. This paper
also presents Existence of workers’ safety clothes; if a worker is wearing a helmet, vest, safety
shoes, and their combination from images, which is collected from the website and manually to
test and train the contractors, Regulatory bodies and Labors on the site to deeply understand
the effect of Safety Management practices on the Construction Sites.

Key words: Construction safety management, personal protective equipment, deep

understanding about safety.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ...........................................................................................................................Ⅱ
LIST OF TABLES....................................................................................................................9
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................11,12
CHAPTER ONE........................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................1
1.1 Background of the study..............................................................................................1
1.2 Statement of the problem.............................................................................................3
1.3 Objective of the study..................................................................................................4
1.3.1General objective....................................................................................................4
1.3.2Specific objectives..................................................................................................4
1.4 Research questions ......................................................................................................4
1.5 Scope of the study .......................................................................................................4
1.6 Limitation of the study ................................................................................................5
1.7 Significance and contribution.......................................................................................5
CHAPTER TWO......................................................................................................................6
LITERATURE REVIEW..........................................................................................................6
2.1 General Safety issues....................................................................................................6
2.2 Safety management system ..........................................................................................8
2.3 Personal Protective Equipment utilization ..................................................................8
2.4 Summary of literature review and research gaps ........................................................9
CHAPTER THREE .................................................................................................................10
METHODOLOGY.......................................................................................................10
3.1 Description of the study area..................................................................................10
3.2 Population and sampling method ..........................................................................12
3.2.1 Target population.....................................................................................12
3.2.2 Sample size..............................................................................................12
3.3 Data collection instrument.....................................................................................13
3.3.1 Questionnaire...................................................................................................13
3.3.2 Interview..........................................................................................................14
3.3.4 Observation checklist ......................................................................................14
3.4 Primary data analysis techniques..........................................................................14
3.4.1 Relative Importance Index method .................................................................14
3.5 Validity of the study ..............................................................................................15

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 CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
The construction industry is one of the leading industries as a sector of the economy, which plays
a significant role in the country's economic development because the construction industry
includes a high level of employment or use of many human resources that opens work
opportunities for several professional workers, semi-skilled workers, and unskilled labors. Also,
there is a high level of financial movement, raw material and machinery adoption, and large
resource consumption (Durdyev & Ismail, 2012). The construction industry covers several areas
that are directly and indirectly related to the country's economic growth. However, it faces many
challenges that affect project goals and economic development, such as project delay, rising
material cost, labor shortage, poor planning, equipment breakdowns, and unexpected accidents
during work. Thus from these challenges, safety is one of the most outstanding issues that need
special consideration in every construction site. Because it relates directly to human life who
works on the construction site, plus it includes people around the construction area who does not
involve in the construction activity. Construction is a highly hazardous industry that widely
exposed employees to accidents, and leading the workers to be injured and die through the
construction life cycle. According to OSHA, statistics around 90% of fatality occurs from four
types of injuries: falling from height when they work on scaffolding or ladders, struck by objects,
held between objects, and electrocution (ElSaftey et al., 2012).
Currently, the construction industry in Ethiopia growth rapidly due to the governmental
movement to improve the country's economic development in every sector from that
construction sector takes primary place in economic growth. However, construction safety in
Ethiopia is very challenging due to several reasons like absence of safety training, lack of
Personal Protective Equipment(PPE) on working site, weak supervision, work more than 48hr
per week, and poor safety management (Mersha et al., 2017). Thus to minimize this challenge,
different safety measures need to be adopted. Protective clothing is one of the effective solutions
provided to protect workers from contact with any harmful material which may cause injury,
disease, or even death. When observing foreign country work culture, PPE used strictly in every
construction area, including site visitors, when they come into the site for supervision.`

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This kind of trend highly improves the safety culture of the construction environment. Also, the
use of personal protective equipment is a universal legal requirement to protect workers against
occupational injuries and illnesses in their workplace (Nath et al., 2020).
A study done in Ethiopia among Addis Ababa shows thirty-eight percent of workers have been
using at least one PPE material while working. In condominium construction, 96.8% of workers
were not using PPE while on duty, but ILO recommendation is 100% safety wear for all industry
workers (Alemu et al., 2020). Thus, to increase protective equipment utilization in construction
sites, appropriate safety management is required either on the organization or the government
side. However, the management system in Ethiopia is inferior due to the tediousness of the
management process, careless behaviour of employees and the employer, high level of work
responsibility on the manager, and unable to visit continuously by the government side. Thus to
overcome challenges in Construction Site, adoption of several types effective safety management
practices is highly required. Construction Site workers requires effective safety management
practices. Thus, this research aims to develop an easy safety management system by utilisation
and usage of safety equipment during construction work and management by creating an easy
monitoring system to control workers' PPE usage on construction sites.It is a known fact that the
primary responsibility falls under the manager to create a safe working environment by
controlling how workers use the protective device during construction activity, if the managers
fulfil their duty, the number of accidents minimized even though the controlling process each
day will be tedious. So this research reduces the complexity and tediousness of the work by
utilizing a system-based technology which creates a simple system for the manager to control
safety easily without going on the site. Additionally, using this system also helps governmental
bodies to monitor the construction firm by using it and recording their safety data. Especially
Successive Control, Training And Announcing Safety criteria for contractors and Labors by
using successive supervision for governmental bodies is very helpful to control the construction
company because they have the authority to force the firm and punish the responsible body.
Also, it creates a clear understanding, between contractors, Society, Laborers and Government
body to judge the contractor and labor by using the recorded data from the successive
supervision system. So the construction sector needs to adopt this kind of successive safety
management system as a protective measure to minimize the challenges and create a safe

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environment for the site workers by providing a effective safety management system practices
in construction sites.
Generally, this research aims to join successive effective safety management practices in the
management field in the specific area of safety management to control PPE utilization on the
site, which provides an accessible platform for governmental bodies to manage safety issues.
Additionally, past studies in Ethiopia related to safety issues Assessed about safety (Alemu et al.,
2020;Fekele et al., 2016;Tadesse & Israel, 2016a). However, past studies in Ethiopia related to
safety issues do not conducted in Adama city and do not practiced properly. So ,this motivates
the researcher to add value by including effective safety management practices on the
construction sites workers in Adama Bole sub-city .
1.2 Statement of the problem
An accident is one of the most disastrous things occur in all creature which causes injury and
death unexpectedly. The construction job is one of the work sectors with a complex activity that
creates life-threatening situations. Nowadays, the accident level increase with the rapid growth of
the industry all over the world. Mainly, a country like Ethiopia has been affected by construction
accidents due to poor safety culture. In Ethiopia's construction projects, several studies were
made related to safety issues. The results show as the main problem in Ethiopia construction is
lack of proper safety culture due to the absence of professional training, lack of protective
device, lack of workplace regulation, and absence of health and safety training for employees
using qualified professionals (Alemu et al., 2020;Lette et al., 2018). Lack of PPE utilization and
insignificant safety measures in a construction site is the primary safety challenge resulting in a
more worth situation than the site with a good PPE trend. Therefore, the unavailability of PPE
during construction had significantly higher risks of work-related injury among construction
workers. Poor site management also influences the improper usage of PPE. Thus, an adequate
safety management system is needed to improve this situation. However, there is a problem in
the management system because of the complexity of the process and less commitment to control
safety issues (Bekele, 2019). So to minimize the complexity of the management process, the
adoption of technological solutions required (Nath et al., 2020;BarroTorres et al., 2012). But, in a
country like Ethiopia, the adoption of effective safety management practices for safety
management is not applied.

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 Additionally, past studies in Ethiopia related to safety issues Assessed about safety
(Alemu et al., 2020;Fekele et al., 2016;Tadesse & Israel, 2016a). So, this motivates the
researcher to add value by including system-based technology in the construction sites.
1.3 Objective of the study
1.3.1.General objective
 Managing the effect of Safety Management practices on the Construction Sites workers
and development of an easy safety management system by utilization and usage of safety
equipment during construction work.
1.3.2.Specific objectives
 To rank personal protective equipment depending on their importance in building
construction activity.
 To enforce and deeply introduce of personal protective equipment in the construction
site using effective safety management system practices on construction workers. .
1.4 Research questions
To achieve the study objective, and all the efforts will be applied to answer the following
research questions. So, according to the previous discussion, different research questions
raised as follows:
1) Which personal protective equipment is the most important and highly required in
building construction project?
2) How effective safety management practices used to introduce and enforce personal
protective equipment for managing construction safety?
1.5 Scope of the study
Construction activity is one of the most complex processes that broadly expose a person to an
accident resulting in death and injuries. Thus, to minimize disaster, Personal Protective
Equipment (PPE) is provided for the workers. However, in a country like Ethiopia, the use of
these materials is almost nominal. Some research exists in the Ethiopian context related to
construction health and safety, but there is not effective safety management practices on
construction site workers specific research related to PPE. Thus, a detailed study in this area
is required. It is a known fact that construction safety covers a wide area. So for data
collection, a specific city with different construction sites taken as a case to collect data from
a construction site. But, before choosing the city, selecting the type of construction project

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required, then for the selected project, the proper city with the available data taken. Because
the availability of the project varies from place to place for road, water, bridge, irrigation,
and railway project rural area preferable and for building projects urban area is the best
choice. Several construction projects exist in the Ethiopian construction industry, such as
building projects, road projects, water projects, irrigation projects, bridge projects, and
railway projects. However, assessing all of the construction projects in Ethiopia's
construction industry will be very hard. Thus due to time and budget limitations, building
construction site in Adama Bole Sub-city is selected. Due to this, the research scope is
limited to the Adama Bole Sub-city building construction site to minimize cost and meet
with the research schedule.
1.6 Limitation of the study
The researcher may face limitations when conducting this study. There may be the
limitation to data collection period, Lack of organized regulatory body data, Boundary of the
study and lack of Skilled site workers in construction sites.

1.7 Significance and contribution

This research tries to identify utilization of Safety Equipments by applying Effective safety
management practices in construction sites to prevent construction workers' on-site wearing
safety Equipments to prevent accidents that come from improper usage of PPE. This
research will contributes directly to the management processes of the construction company
by providing an easy effective safety management practices. Several kinds of research have
existed related to health and safety in the Ethiopian context. However, their study does not
focus on applying effective safety practices in construction sites on construction workers to
monitor workers' outfits on site. So this research use effective safety management practices
that enforce people entering the construction site to wear PPE. In addition, this research will
be significant because it needs to enforce and apply effective safety management practices.
Also this study needs to show how effective safety management practice can simplify
hazardous accidents and solves complex problems on site workers. Thus this research
motivates me to my future researcher to focus on system-based solutions. Generally, this
research contributes to improving the safety of a person entering the site by providing an
easy and effective safety management practices to overcome the accident that comes from
improper usage of safety materials. Also, the management system gives an easy regulation
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 system by using effective safety management practices for all of the parties included in each
specific project by decreasing the rate of death and injuries on construction activity.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Safety in construction is one of the crucial things that affect the employees' well-being and
productivity to meet the project goal (Jazayeri & Dadi, 2017). Thus, safety in construction is an
important thing that needs an effective and efficient management system to keep workers and the
organization safe. The following literature shows the researches on safety and health issues.

2.1 General Safety issues

A construction site is a hazardous workplace that results in different injuries and fatalities
among workers. To minimize this disastrous situation developing a good safety culture in every
construction sector is required.. Thus, to minimize the accident rate in every construction site
implementing appropriate safety practices desired, including awareness of employees, efficient
training, top management commitment, resource and budget provision, and providing safety
booklets in a different language (Keng & Razak, 2014). The construction site is naturally a very
challenging place for going full of safety due to several reasons, resulting in poor safety culture.
Organization factors, resource factors, site factors, management factors, and workforce factors
are the challenging factors for construction site safety. Under these, causes of construction
hazardous are listed, such as the absence of safety awareness, shortage of PPE, lack of
knowledgeable managers and technical guidance, ineffective safety policies, and irresponsible
acts (Durdyev et al., 2017). In addition to this, there are different types of construction site
problems related to safety practices, such as the absence of financial provision for safety
management, lack of communication between employees and supervisors, and ignorance of
workers (Keng & Razak, 2014). Injury and death due to construction activity result from several
causes or several casual factors related to each other, resulting in hazardous situations. These
factors are employee actions, risk
management, instant supervision, materials or equipment usage, local hazards, employee
capacity, and project management. The combination of these factors present in several
construction incidents, but their impact differs in every situation. Due to this, the most critical
factors which have the highest impact are employee actions, instant supervision, and risk
management (Winge, Albrechtsen, & Mostue, 2019).

The most critical factors that cause construction accidents are negligence of PPE, improper
usage of PPE, poor management and training, and lack of knowledge (Elavarasan & Kamal,
2017). Therefore, to create a safe working environment for the construction workers, the above
critical factors need to be reduced. In Ethiopia's construction site, the major factors that result in
poor safety culture are unavailability of strong company Health & Safety (H&S) policy, poor
execution of the existing building rules and regulations, and poor safety awareness of the

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company top management (Fekele et al., 2016). Likewise, working without PPE, lack of H&S
training, absence of regular supervision, lack of PPE, working for more than 48hr per week, lack
of awareness, employees do not have information that the company has written safety rules &
regulations which reflect management concerns are the factors that challenge safety cultures in
Ethiopia which related to poor management (Lette et al., 2018;Tadesse & Israel, 2016;Alemu et
al., 2020;Mersha et al., 2017). Considering safety and health policy in the contract document
before taking the project is an essential solution, including safety as a pay item and assigning a
budget for health and safety (Fekele et al., 2016). On the client-side, develop a good safety
culture provision of occupational safety assurance and implement a safety management system.
Also, associated factors for utilization of PPE in a proper way are the provision of safety
training, preparation of safety brief before starting work, and governmental visits (Alemu et al.,
2020).

Generally, effective regular site supervision, adequate safety training, monitoring hazards in the
workplace, and controlling PPE usage are the usually given solutions to create a safe working
environment (Tadesse & Israel, 2016b;Alemu et al., 2020).

2.2 Safety management system

Management is a vast discipline that deals with organizing, planning, leading, and controlling.
The construction industry is one of the largest industries that apply management in every aspect
of the industry. Safety management is one of the management aspects that contain a continuous
process to decide risk-related issues. It is an approach that manages safety in a well-organized
way that embraces organizational policy, procedure, accountability, and structure. Also, a safety
management system is a set of interconnected elements to implement safety and health policy
and objectives (Jazayeri & Dadi, 2017). In general safety management system includes safety
encouragements, safety guide, safety regulation, and training (Wong et al., 2020). Also, safety
management is one of the main factors, which affects construction safety due to less
management commitment, lack of knowledgeable managers, and poor management ( Keng &
Razak, 2014; ElSafty et al., 2012). A safety management system is a crucial way of management
that prevent and control the hazardous situation in construction place, by minimizing the number
of injuries, reduce risk of accidents, regulate workplace risk, decrease material and equipment
damage, reduce the cost of insurance and legal cost of the accident, minimize loss of expert and
experience (Jazayeri & Dadi, 2017). The management team is required to consider safety issues
at the planning phase, and higher responsibility falls into top management and governmental
authorities for improving safety performance (Durdyev et al., 2017). A variety of safety
management factors that helps the construction industry to achieve better safety performance
were assessed such as, roles and responsibilities, OHS and project management, education, site
management, staff management, and working risk management. The most strongly linked factors
to safety performance are site, staff, and operational risk management (Winge, Albrechtsen, &
Arnesen, 2019). Implementing a safety management system in every construction site is used to
create a safe working environment and minimize hazardous situations. However, there are some

7
obstacles to implement this system, such as taking safety issues as insignificant, inactive
contribution among the stakeholder regarding safety issues, tight project schedule, and high-
income rate (Yiu et al., 2019)
2.3 Personal Protective Equipment utilization
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is any material utilized to protect workers in any hazardous
working environment. The construction industry is a risky industry that requires the utilization of
this protective equipment during the construction process to protect workers from harmful
chemicals and materials. However, construction workers improperly utilize PPE or refuse it;
even the professional workers neglect PPE or wear it improperly. Ignoring PPE during
construction activity increases hazards, especially ignoring safety belts, safe clothing, helmet,
and safety vest from several types of equipment result in much worse conditions (Aung et al.,
2019). The main reason for neglecting PPE during construction activity resulted from several
factors like PPE utilization attitude, habituation, risk awareness, safety-related issues, safety
awareness, safety management system, time influence, and workplace situations.

And comfort is one of the challenges when using PPE during work. Because the PPEs designed
only by considering the defensive ability of the material and lack of comfort doesn’t get attention
by the designers, which highly minimize the usability of the equipment and push the workers to
refuse PPE. Thus, to minimize this challenge, designers must design comfortable and easily
adaptable PPE (Wong et al., 2020). The study done in Ethiopia shows that PPE culture is weak in
every construction site. The result is expressed statically by different researchers taken from
Ethiopia towns. The research done in Addis Ababa shows that PPE is not available on-site,
which exposed workers to injury, and death in the construction site. Occupational injuries
annually show 847 injuries per 1000 workers, and 74 were hospitalized (Mersha et al., 2017).

38.3% of the employee in Addis Ababa in building construction projects used at least one PPE,
and 3/4 of the employees did not use PPE on construction sites (Tadesse & Israel, 2016;Alemu et
al., 2020).

The study on Robe town revealed that injuries on female workers in construction sites 60% less
than male workers. A construction worker who doesn’t use PPE during work was 3.6 times more
likely to face injury than a worker who uses PPE (Lette et al., 2018). To improve these
challenges inspiring workers and creating awareness required to increase utilization of PPE,
which includes the provision of practical training, selecting the right PPE depends on the task
and PPE maintenance. Because the effectiveness of PPE depends on the experience, skill,
attitude, and acceptance of workers (Amir et al., 2018), and training related to PPE utilization is
one of the influencing factors to improve PPE usage culture among the workers (Sehsah et al.,
2020). Generally, to enhance PPE culture in the construction industry, a better management
system is needed to control workers' PPE usage, give guidance when using PPE, and prepare
training related to PPE usage. Availability of PPE is one of the factors that influence the
utilization of protective equipment. Because most construction companies have weaknesses in

8
providing protective equipment for their employees and the common PPEs used in construction
sites are helmets, safety shoes, reflectors, protective cloth, gloves, goggle, face shield, dust mask,
and earplugs. The availability of this protective equipment differs from site to site. However,
providing all of the material will be difficult due to their high-cost requirement. Helmets and
safety shoes are provided in most construction sites because the absence of both PPEs results in
more damage when compared with the rest PPEs. In the first place, helmet and safety shoes
ranked when measured by availability in construction sites, and safety harness, protective
clothing, and gloves ranked in third, fourth, and fifth place. The lowest-ranked value given for
safety goggle and nose mask is not available in most construction sites (Amir et al., 2018). Thus,
PPE should be wear at all construction sites to control the risk of injury and death. Every
construction activity requires an employee to wear a helmet, safety shoes, gloves, goggles, eye
protection, earplugs, face shield, dust mask, reflector, safety harness, and protective clothing
(Bekele, 2019).
Description of the commonly used PPEs in construction sites defined in Table l
Table 2.1 Description of PPEs

S PPE Description
N
1 Helmet To Protect the head against impacts from fixed and falling objects.
2 Goggle Used to protect the eye when cutting, welding, or nailing construction
equipment.
3 Safety shoes To prevent crushed toes when working around heavy equipment
4 Earplug hearing protection is used in work areas with high noise levels like
crusher sites.
5 Glove To protect the hand from harmful chemicals by using heavy-duty rubber
gloves
6 Reflector It is utilized when visibility is impaired.

7 Safety It is a fall protection equipment that protects employees when working

harness in height.
8 Face-shield To protect the wearer's entire face from any harmful materials.

9 Dust-mask Utilized to prevent any harmful dust during construction and cleaning
activities.
10 Protective Used to protect the body against hazardous liquids and gases
clothing
2.4. Summary of literature review and research gaps
Safety in the construction industry is one of the most important issues that needs
improvement in different aspects, such as the management system, and safety investment.
In detail the review describes about general safety issues, factor affect construction site
safety, safety management system, PPE utilization among construction workers, solution
provided by different researchers.

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 Depend on this review the research gaps were identified and during this phase strong base
would formed for the research. In the above review, the most important factor affecting
construction safety is the effectiveness of the safety management system on the
construction company. Safety management is one of the management aspects which
contains organizational policy, procedure, accountability, and structure.

The safety management system, is used to minimize the number of injuries, reduce the
risk of accidents, regulate workplace risk, decrease material and equipment damage,
reduce the cost of insurance and legal cost of an accident, minimize loss of expert and
experience (Jazayeri & Dadi, 2017). To achieve more excellent safety performance,
several safety management factors were explored, such as roles and responsibilities,
Occupational Health and Safety(OHS) and project management, education, site
management, staff management, and working risk management (Winge, Albrechtsen, &
Mostue, 2019). However, some obstacles limit the implementation of good safety
management systems, such as taking safety issues as insignificant, inactive contribution
among the stakeholder regarding safety issue, tight project schedule, and high income
rate (Yiu et al., 2019).

CHAPTER THREE 3
METHODOLOGY
This chapter discusses the study area description, population and sampling method, sources and
tools/ instruments of data collection, and data analysis methods. In general, this chapter presents
the research method to achieve the study objective and answer the research questions discussed
in the above chapters.

3.1. Description of study area

The study would be conduct in Adama City. Adama is a city in the central Oromia Region
which is located Eastern shewa zone, 99 kilometers southeast of the Capital Addis Ababa .The
population of the City is growing rapidly. The 2007 Census presented the population of Adama
around 456,868 at 2014 E.c. Out of the total population 223,560 male and female 233,308.
(Source: Ethiopian Statistics Service(Web)). As history shows Adama was established in 1908
E.C, officially known as ''Adaamii''w/c means cactus like tree. Adama is the sparkling city in the
rift valley with continuous development for the past ten years. Adama is smaller in size when
compared to Addis Ababa, but despite its size the town is continuously growing from time to
time. The size of the city grew four folds than it was two decades ago. The urban expansion in

10
Adama city is 34000 hectares in 2010 E.c. Adama has six sub cities which are called Abbaa
Gadaa, Dambalaa, Luugoo, Boolee, Daabee, and Bokkuu. This research Will be conducted on
building projects located in Adama Bole Sub- city focusing on The effect of Safety
Management practices on the Construction Sites workers.

Figure 3.1.Adama City structural Plan Land Use of The City

11
Figure 3.2 Bole sub-city Location Map

3.2 Population and sampling method

3.2.1 Target population

The total population includes construction companies in Ethiopian construction projects.

Building projects are more exposed to construction accidents due to their complex
activity, and building projects are searchable to identify and understand problems. The
representative Construction sites are taken from G+2 and above ongoing building

12
construction projects in Adama Bole sub city. The study population would be based on
the data from Adama City Construction Authority office and Bole sub city construction
Authority.The research scope access 50 under construction G+2 and above building
projects in Adama Bole Sub-city. The research focus on G+2 and above building projects
in Adama Bole Sub-City. The targeted population is the employees who worked in G+2
and above building projects, such as project managers, site engineers, timekeepers,
Forman, carpenters, and bar benders of the selected construction companies.
3.2.2 Sample size
The research sample is under construction G+2 and above building projects located in
Adama Bole Sub-City. The questionnaire will distributes to each building project
employee, such as office engineers, site engineers, project managers, safety manager,
supervisors, and others available at the construction site during the data collection time.
The respondents should work on each building construction project. Out of the total
population-representative samples would taken by selecting randomly ongoing building
projects. In building projects, governmental regulation in safety issues is inferior and
safety practices in Adama City is very poor. For this reason this research focuses on G+2
and above building projects.
3.3 Data collection instrument
In this study, both quantitative and qualitative methods or a mixed-method approach will
be used. Each approach has its limitations and advantages, so it is vital to use both
method to find better results from the analysis and investigation. For the quantitative
data, questionnaire survey and the qualitative data interviews and field observations
would be used.
3.3.1 Questionnaire
In this research, a questionnaire would be used as a data collection instrument to
identify the most significant Personnel Protective Equipments in the Adama Bole sub-
city building construction site. Moreover, to make it more straightforward for the
employees’ questionaries would be prepared in English,Afaan Oromoo and Amharic
language . Close-end questions type used in this research such as Dichotomous questions
and Likert scale questions. Likewise, the color of PPE would asked in a table format by
listing different colors of PPEs to help the respondents memorize the available color then
they select in the questionnaire. A dichotomous type of questions would be used in this
research to assess which type of PPE available in their construction site. In the
dichotomous questions, the participants would respond yes/no for the availability of
protective materials currently on the construction site. Also, Likert scale type of questions
would be used in this research to evaluate the importance of PPEs. The Likert scale is
one of the best approaches used by different researchers to measure importance. Likert
scale question is a type of question with five or seven-point options. A seven-point,
Likert scale question type would be used in this research to assess the importance of each
piece of protective equipment. The seven measuring scales are 7-extremely important, 6-
very important,
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5-important, 4-somewhat -important, 3-not that important, 2-neutral, and 1-unimportant.
Thus, the Likert scale questions would be used in this study to assess the importance of
PPEs then the importance of PPE would be ranked using RII methods.
3.3.2 Interview
Interviewing data collection method is used as an intermediating approach to minimize
the gap between the data collected from the questionnaire and observation.
To make the data more relevant to the study, questionnaires’ should supported by the
interview and to find why they rank PPEs from extremely important up to un important.
It helps respondents to understand the question result from lack of knowledge interview
method of data collection. Depending on these reasons, respondents may be informally
interviewed to support the questionnaire.
3.3.3 Observation checklist
An observation checklist is a list of questions that the data collector should answer via
observing the actual condition of the construction environment. It is a surveying
technique in which the data collector measures the existing situation from a professional
insight to determine the fact. An observational checklist would be used in this research to
evaluate the actual PPE utilization in building construction sites to know the real situation
further. Also, observation would be used for the data collection to support the result
from the questionnaire and interviews of the respondents and to cross-check the given
response.
3.4 Primary data analysis techniques
The data acquired from the primary sources using questionnaires would be analyzed
using IBM SPSS statics, and Excel. IBM SPSS statistics would be used in this research
to analyze the descriptive statistics of the primary data. Descriptive statistics is the
analysis of data used to summarize data easily. The output of the SPSS analysis export to
Excel to represent data in graphical and table form. Also, Excel will be used to rank PPEs
by using the RII method of ranking.

3.4.1 Relative Importance Index method(RII)

Data collected using a scale questionnaire can be ranked using different methods, and the
scale was measured by using the importance of each PPEs. Thus, the ranking method
should be a suitable approach for rating the importance. Relative importance index (RII)
is a ranking method commonly used for ranking data collected in terms of importance
scale. Thus, in this research relative importance index (RII) method would be used to
rank which type of PPE is the most important for building construction projects because
it is suitable for ranking questions measured by the importance of something. The rank of
different types of PPE values depends on their importance and we can use the following
formula.
𝑅𝐼𝐼 = 7𝑛7 + 6𝑛6 + 5𝑛5 + 4𝑛4 + 3𝑛3 + 2𝑛2 + 1𝑛
A*N

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  N= Total number of respondent
 A= Highest weight
 n1= number of unimportant response
 n2= number of neutral response
 n3= number of not that response
 n4= number of somewhat response
 n5= number of important response
 n6= number of very important response
 n7= number of extremely important response
3.5 Validity of the study
Data validity test is a method used to measure how accurately the collected data measures
what it intended to measure. In this research, the validity would be tested using content
validity, face validity, and construct validity. Content validity is used before the actual
data collection to evaluate the content of the question if some aspects are missing and
irrelevant aspects embrace. Although by using face validity suitability of the
questionnaire tested and construct validity would be used to test the method of
measurement used in the collection process match with the concept the researcher wants
to measure. Thus, the above validity measuring method would be used in the research to
test the questions before using for the actual work by asking some respondents to identify
problems on interpretations and detect any doubts. Likewise, in the interview, volunteer
bodies would be asked a couple of questions in the interview form. To test the validity of
the interview response of the sample question would be recorded and organized as data.
Thus, to assure data quality, pre-testing the questionnaire taken from some selected
respondents before the real work begins to identify problem areas, unanticipated
interpretations, and cultural objections to any questions.
3.6 Reliability of the study
Reliability is a measure of consistency to evaluate the reliability of the result. There are
three types of reliability measure such as test-retest reliability, internal consistency, and
inter-rater reliability. The test-retest reliability is the reliability of the output or result
measured by the result difference when the data collection time varies, thus to avoid this
kind of issue, the interview at the same time in different companies would be collected.
The internal consistency would be measured by using Cronbach's Alpha α (or coefficient
alpha), developed by Lee Cronbach in 1951, which measures internal consistency, which
shows how closely related a set of items, to measure the scale of reliability. This method
of testing reliability is used for dichotomous and continuously scored variables to
indicates consistency. The Cronbach's Alpha is a coefficient that ranges from 0 to 1; if the
answer is 0, there is no consistency in the measurement in another way if the answer is 1,
perfect reliability, and if the answer is 0.7 means the score is reliable variance and its
more realistic. Thus, the reliability in this research would be tested by using Cronbach's

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Alpha (coefficient Alpha) in IBM SPSS statics to measure internal consistency. The
formula for Cronbach's Alpha is:

α =N . C̅ ∕ ¿𝑉̅ + ((𝑁 − 1)).𝐶̅)

Where:
N = the number of items.
c̄ = average covariance between item-pairs.
v̄ = average variance.
In this research, several threats that bias the reliability would be eliminated.The
interview Would done to prevent bias in this research, when the respondent is free and
the questionnaires collected confidentially, to respond their opinion without the influence
of their managers. The last one is the researcher biases is any factor that adds a bias in the
researchers when recording responses in the interview and interprets subjectively.In this
research, the researcher should made all of the interview objective rather than subjective.
i.e. depending on the above factors, this research would be reliable and avoid any factors
that influence the reliability of the research.

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