Step 4: Event Analysis
So far, you have collected a lot of factual data and it's strewn all over your desk. The task now is to turn that data into useful information. You've got to somehow take this data and make some sense of it.
Assessment vs. Analysis
It's important to know that you're not gathering all of this information just to conduct an assessment of what was and was not present immediately prior to the accident. You're actually conducting an analysis to determine specifically how surface causes (behaviors and conditions), and the underlying root causes (system weaknesses) contributed to the accident. To better understand this, let's take a closer look at what the process of "analysis" is.
Analysis Defined
Webster defines analysis as the, "separation of an intellectual or substantial whole into its parts for individual study."
The accident is a complicated process of individual events leading up to and including the main event. When an accident occurs, we need to separate or "break down" the "whole" accident into its component "parts" for study to determine how they contributed to the accident: the main event.
The accident investigator's challenge is to effectively assess each event to identify the presence or absence of behaviors and conditions, and then analyze those behaviors and conditions in each event to determine if and how they contributed to the accident. To do this we need to make some basic assumptions about the factors that cause or contribute to accidents.
Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.
1-7. What is the definition of analysis?
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