Conference PaperNavigating the Theory-to-Practice Gap: Insights from a Process Safety Education Pilot StudyButler-Morton, Brittany L; Ritz, Cayla; Miskioglu, Elif; Bodnar, Cheryl A; Dringenberg, EmilyAs engineering students transition from their undergraduate education into their first full-time roles within industry, they are often facing a two year induction period as a result of a Theory-to-Practice gap (Gao & Rhinehart, 2004; Rhinehart, 2019, Rhinehart 2015). The gap between engineering students and industry practitioners can be the result of many different factors: students learning complex and fundamental concepts through simple problems, students having difficulty combining knowledge from different courses to solve realistic scenarios, or the lack of time students have to master these concepts (Rhinehart, 2015). This two year induction period causes problems for the company, the individuals, and for higher education, so it is important to identify areas where this gap exists and how it can potentially be mitigated. One area worthy of investigation related to the Theory to Practice gap is the field of process safety education due to its significant impact on professional practice. This pilot study sought to gain an initial understanding of what differences may exist between how experienced industry practitioners and undergraduate engineering students approach process safety judgments. We used this data as a means for determining if approaches to process safety judgments may be an area related to where this gap has been observed. As part of the pilot study, we conducted interviews with both students and practitioners where we provided them with a list of competing criteria that are relevant to process safety judgements such as time, production, and relationships, and then asked them to describe their approach to making process safety judgments given five specific scenarios. We found that industry practitioners and students were both relying on previous experience when describing their approaches to process safety judgments. Practitioners related the scenarios to prior work place events, while students connected them to problems they learned about in class, internships, or retail jobs. A noted difference between industry practitioners and students was that industry practitioners also described being heavily influenced by relationships with co-workers, superiors, and families when approaching these judgments, which seemed to be lacking in the student responses. Past process safety incidents, as documented by the United States Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), have shown that the dynamics of relationships can have an impact on judgment processes which lead to detrimental results. The findings from this study provide additional support for the role of relationships in process safety judgments and the need for process safety instruction that addresses this role. Moving forward, it will be important to expose undergraduate students to the role of relationships in judgment-making processes so that we can better prepare them to navigate the complexities of process safety judgments.American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) PEER2024-06-2310529539https://doi.org/2113846Portland, OregonNational Science Foundation