Unit Synopsis
In this unit you will consider some of the latest theories in the Safety Sciences, particularly in relation to the concept of resilience in organisations and broader organisational culture issues. The factors which influence the quality and validity of decision making within organisations, such as, values, mindfulness, culture, adaptive systems, participation and leadership in complex socio-technical systems will be considered. You will critically reflect on and evaluate theories such as resilience engineering, high reliability organisations, safety culture and safety climate, and discuss the usefulness of these theories to practice. You will also have the opportunity to evaluate the usefulness of the tools and methods available to measure and monitor factors that affect resilience and other safety science concepts within organisations.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 3 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 2 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
Co-requisite:- AINV11002 Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School | No Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2026
Term 2 - 2026 Profile
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Critical Review | 20% |
| 2. Written Assessment | 40% |
| 3. Literature Review or Systematic Review | 40% |
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site .
Term 2 - 2025 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 100.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 31.58% response rate.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Source: SUTE Comments
Students felt that the assignments did not offer enough alternative theory or thinking on a theory.
The assessments were changed in 2024 in order to reduce plagiarism and offer a more scaffolded learning experience across the three assessments. This appears to have created not enough variance across the assessment items. It is therefore recommended to review and change the assessment tasks for the 2025 offering in order to add greater variety in critical thinking on the key aspects covered in this unit.
Assessments were upgraded to offer greater variance across the assessment items.
Source: SUTE Comments
Students reported that the lectures were presented in a way that made it easy to follow and grasp the concepts.
It is recommended to keep the lecture format for the next offering.
Lecture format was maintained.
Source: SUTE Comments
Students reported that assessment criteria were clear and expectations were explained really well during the lectures.
It is recommended to keep the lecture format whereby lecture material is clearly linked to assessment criteria and assessment expectations.
Lecture format which clearly linked assessment criteria and assessment expectations was maintained.
Source: SUTE Comments
One student advised that they felt that there was too much focus on one safety science theorist in the assessments and lectures which they felt was too biased.
It is recommended to review the assessments and lecture material with a view to expanding on the content and having less of a focus on a key safety science theorist.
Content and assessments expanded to include additional safety science theories.
Source: Lecturer and Unit Coordinator Reflection
Emphasise the importance of including references to support claims (which could otherwise indicate use of artificial intelligence language applications) as well as the existence of self-plagiarism, even at the third-year level to circumvent further misunderstandings.
Before each assessment submission, continue to remind students of their academic integrity responsibilities, and provide some tips for avoiding plagiarism, including self-plagiarism.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Explore the characteristics of resilience in organisations.
- Develop an ability to critically read and write on contemporary safety science theories from an evidence-informed advancing safety professional perspective.
- Evaluate the theories that underpin resilience in organisations such as resilience engineering, safety culture and high reliability organisations and discuss the usefulness of these theories to practice.
- Discern those factors which influence the quality and validity of decision making within organisations, such as, values, mindfulness, culture, adaptive systems, participation and leadership.
- Compare controversial terms related to safety and culture and the ongoing debate underlying these precepts and relationships.
- Evaluate the usefulness of the tools and methods available to measure and monitor contemporary safety science concepts such as organisational resilience potentials and safety culture/safety climate.
The course is accredited by the Australian OHS Education Board. This unit relates to the OHS body of knowledge chapters on the organisation.
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 1 - Critical Review | • | • | • | • | ||
| 2 - Written Assessment | • | • | • | • | ||
| 3 - Literature Review or Systematic Review | • | • | • | • | • | |
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 1 - Communication | • | • | • | • | • | • |
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | • | • | • | • | • |
| 4 - Information Literacy | • | • | • | • | • | |
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | • | |||||
| 7 - Cross Cultural Competence | • | • | • | • | ||
| 8 - Ethical practice | • | • | • | |||
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |