Development of seafarers' onboarding scale: a pilot study on ship familiarization

Abstract

The fourth industrial revolution and employers’ focus on profit have led to numerous changes in seafaring. Working in a fast-paced, demanding and challenging work environment requires a variety of skills. Therefore, the need to transfer knowledge to less experienced crew members as part of personnel development has increased the importance of the onboarding process. Considering that previous studies have not investigated the onboarding process of seafarers, this pilot study aimed to develop an instrument that would measure ship familiarization as an important part of the onboarding process of seafarers. 102 responses were collected and the results of the exploratory factor analysis revealed two dimensions. Namely: Efficient onboarding and Stress on board which together explain forty-nine percent of the variance. The reliability of the two subscales was satisfactory. Future studies should delve into other parts of seafarers’ onboarding and be conducted on larger and more diverse samples which would allow for more solid conclusions.