Developing an evidence-based Competence Assessment Tool for the Soft Skills of Seafarers

Host Organisation:	Istognosis Ltd
Project Budget:	256.622,97 €
IDEK Funding:	171.937,39 €

The main objective of the project is to develop a multi-language, evidence-based Competence Assessment Tool for the Soft Skills of Seafarers (CATSSS). The proposed tool addresses the need of the local and global shipping industry to identify low performing masters and chief officers and provide them with targeted training and support, thus developing high performance crews and preventing human errors and associated loss of lives and cargo. Under the current proposal Safebridge Cyprus aims to significantly improve the existing online tool that the company is offering by undertaking a rigorous research program. More specifically, the existing test of soft skills will be translated and adapted from English to Greek and Tagalog and an evidence base will be built to provide norms and support its validity and reliability for assessing marine masters and chief officers that are native speakers of these languages. Furthermore, a prototype platform will be designed and developed to deliver fully automatized, online assessment and reporting of the results in an fair and unambiguous way. The proposed actions will lead to the development of a one of a kind product that is not currently existing in the market. The originality of the product is determined by the combination of its properties: industryspecific, online administration and reporting, standardization, established reliability, validity and norms for English, Greek and Tagalog versions . This makes CAT-SSS a tool that is professionally, ethically and legally justified to use by shipping and crewing management companies allowing them to perform cost-effective, large scale assessments, identify low performers and implement interventions to prevent accidents.