Formation of skills for effective management of environmental safety processes in professional training programs for oil and gas industry employees

Abstract

The article is devoted to the development and evaluation of the effectiveness of a practice-oriented program for forming environmental safety management skills among oil and gas industry employees under conditions of increasing production risks and the predominance of the human factor in the causes of incidents. The aim of the study is to bridge the gap between theoretical training and real tasks by integrating competence-based and contextual approaches within a modular learning architecture. The empirical base covered 520 employees from eight enterprises (engineering and technical personnel and middle managers), randomized into control and experimental groups of 260 people each. The program for the experimental group included modules on regulations and standards, assessment and management of environmental risks, modern systems of industrial environmental control, practicing emergency response actions using VR simulators, and project activities. Evaluation was carried out through questionnaires, standardized tests, case-solving, and practical tasks on simulators, complemented by expert evaluations from 15 industry specialists. Statistical analysis included the t-test for independent samples and correlation analysis (IBM SPSS Statistics 26). At the initial stage, the groups did not differ in integral and component competence indicators, confirming the correctness of the design. After the intervention, the experimental group demonstrated growth: cognitive component – 89,44%, operational-activity – 85,73%, motivational-value – 81,95%, integral indicator – 85,71% at p 0.001, while changes in the control group were minimal. Production validation over 12 months recorded a decrease in environmental incidents by 81,82%, excessive emissions by 78,54%, fines by 87,58%, and citations by 77,78%, with a strong correlation between competence growth and incident reduction (r = 0.87). The novelty lies in the multicomponent competency model and the integration of VR simulation, case methods, and project activities with the monitoring of production KPIs; practical significance is confirmed by economic efficiency. Prospects are associated with the implementation of digital twins, adaptive platforms, and AI for personalizing learning trajectories and predicting risks.