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1 Copyright © 2008 by ASME
Proceedings of the 16
th
International Conference on Nuclear Engineering
ICONE16
May 11 - 15, 2008, Orlando, Florida, USA
ICONE16-48952
RADIATION PROTECTION TECHNICIAN TWO-YEAR ASSOCIATES OF APPLIED
SCIENCE CURRICULUM FOR NATIONAL IMPLEMENTATION
William H. Miller
University of Missouri
Missouri University Research
Reactor / Nuclear Science and
Engineering Institute
David Jonassen
University of Missouri
School of Information Science
& Learning Technologies
Rose Marra
University of Missouri
School of Information Science
& Learning Technologies
Matthew Schmidt
University of Missouri
School of Information Science
& Learning Technologies
Matthew Easter
University of Missouri
Educational Counseling
Psychology
Ioan Gelu Ionas
University of Missouri
School of Information Science
& Learning Technologies
Gayla M Neumeyer
University of Missouri
Missouri University Research
Reactor
Randy Etter
Linn State Technical College
Advanced Technology Center
Bruce Meffert
Linn State Technical College
Advanced Technology Center
Christopher C. Graham
Callaway Nuclear Plant
AmerenUE
ABSTRACT
The U.S. Department of Labor awarded a $2.3 million
grant to the University of Missouri-Columbia (MU) in 2006 in
response to the need for well-trained Radiation Protection
Technicians (RPTs). The RPT curriculum initiative resulted
from significant collaborations facilitated by MU with
community colleges, nuclear power plants, professional
organizations, and other nuclear industry stakeholders.
The objective of the DOL project is to help increase the pool
of well-qualified RPTs to enter the nuclear workforce. Our
work is designed to address the nuclear industry’s well-
documented, increasingly significant need for RPTs. In
response to this need, MU and AmerenUE’s Callaway Nuclear
Power Plant first partnered with Linn State Technical
College’s Advanced Technology Center (LSTC/ATC) to
initiate a two-year RPT degree program. The success of this
program (enrollments have been increasing over the past four
years to a Fall 2007 enrollment of 23) enabled the successful
proposal to the DOL to expand this program nationwide.
DOL participants include the following partners: Linn State
Technical College with AmerenUE – Callaway; Central
Virginia Community College with AREVA; Estrella Mountain
Community College with Arizona Public Service – Palo
Verde; MiraCosta Community College with Southern
California Edison – San Onofre; and Hill College with Texas
Utilities – Comanche Peak
The new DOL grant has allowed redevelopment of the
LSTC/ATC curriculum using a web-based, scenario driven
format, benchmarked against industry training standards. This
curriculum will be disseminated to all partners. Integral in this
curriculum is a paid, three to four month internship at a
nuclear facility.
Two of the six new RPT courses have been developed as of
the end of 2007. Four of five partner schools are accepting
students into this new program starting in the winter 2008
term. We expect that these institutions will graduate 100 new
RPTs per year to help alleviate the personnel shortage in this
critical area of need.
2 Copyright © 2008 by ASME
1. THE NEED
Studies in 2000 and 2001 documented the nuclear industry’s
increasing demand for new personnel [1-3]. These analyses
indicated a need for roughly 90,000 new nuclear employees in
the next 10 years. In particular, the loss of Radiation
Protection personnel at nuclear power plants was expected to
exceed 57% over a five year period and projections suggested
that over 1,000 replacement radiation protection workers were
needed. This estimate did not include the needs at the US
Department of Energy or the impact due to the creation of new
jobs from new nuclear power plant construction. Radiation
protection personnel serve in numerous facilities that work
with radioactive materials in nuclear power plants,
Department of Energy facilities, radiopharmaceutical
manufacturers, hospitals, research facilities, food irradiation
facilities, and university research reactors.
More recent reports have reaffirmed this need. NEI’s report in
January 2004 [4] identified four key career pools in radiation
protection, engineering, operations and skilled crafts and
stated that the industry may be unprepared for the amount of
attrition in these areas in the next 3-5 years. Historic attrition
(non-retirement) is over 4.5% per year based on the past 3
years and pending retirement attrition may be underestimated
by as much as 50% based on empirical survivor models. The
American Nuclear Society’s 2006 Position Statement on
“Maintaining a Viable Nuclear Industry Workforce” [5] noted
that in 2004, the average age of nuclear workers was 48, with
28% eligible to retire within five years. Charles Goodnight
stated in his article “Overcoming the Challenges of the Ageing
Nuclear Workforce & Knowledge Transfer” [6] that the
critical skill areas are estimated to lose between one-third and
one-half of all of their staff within 5 years.
2. THE PARTNERSHIPS
To address the need for Radiation Protection personnel a pilot
RPT Program with Linn State Technical College’s Advanced
Technology Center (LSTC/ATC) was initiated. The initial
curriculum effort resulted from a unique partnership between
Missouri University (MU), Linn State Technical College’s
Advanced Technology Center (LSTC/ATC) and AmerenUE’s
Callaway Nuclear Plant. A two-year Associates of Applied
Science Degree in Nuclear Technology (AASDNT)
curriculum was developed and approved by the Missouri
Coordinating Board for Higher Education in early 2001.
Within a year, funding to hire a permanent teacher for ATC
was requested and subsequently awarded as part of a US
Department of Energy Innovations in Nuclear Infrastructure
and Education grant to the Midwest Nuclear Science and
Engineering Consortium (of which MU and LSTC/ATC are
participating schools). With an instructor and the RPT
curriculum in place, LSTC/ATC accepted the first cohort of
nine students in the Fall 2004 semester, with 12 in the Fall
2005, 14 in Fall 2006, and 27 in Fall 2007.
Of ATC’s first six students who graduated in June 2006, five
took jobs with nuclear power plants and one with a nuclear
manpower provider. The second graduating class included 10
students who took positions at various nuclear utilities, as well
as the Missouri University Research Reactor.
Following the successful implementation of the ATC program,
MU, LSTC/ATC, and the Callaway Plant team collaborated
again to develop a proposal to disseminate the RPT degree in
response to national attention that the LSTC/ATC program
had received. This proposal was funded by the US
Department of Labor Education and Training Administration’s
(DOL/ETA) grant program under the President’s High Growth
Job Training Initiative (HGJTI) for the Energy Sector. The
DOL grant focused on redeveloping the LSTC/ATC
curriculum, benchmarking it against industry training
standards [7, 8] and disseminating it to additional schools
throughout the county who were partnering with nuclear
employers (see Table 1).
Table 1. DOL Grant Partners
Community College Nuclear Facility Partners
Linn State Technical College AmerenUE – Callaway
Estrella Mountain
Community College
Arizona Public Service –
Palo Verde
MiraCosta Community
College
Southern California Edison –
San Onofre
Hill College TXU Comanche Peak
All partner schools Bartlett Nuclear, Inc.
In the DOL proposal, nuclear facility partners were asked to
document their intent to support paid internships for students,
which was a crucial factor in the success of the MU proposal.
In addition to letters of support from partner schools and their
nuclear energy partners, the Nuclear Energy Institute and the
Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) contributed
letters of support for the proposal. A partnership was also
developed with the US Institute for a Competitive Workforce
(formerly the Center for Workforce Preparation) to develop
community and regional relationships to support recruitment
of students into the degree programs as they are adopted by
partner schools. Since obtaining this grant award, we continue
to expand and diversify the partnerships with nuclear industry
organizations toward the success of the DOL project. INPO
and the National Academy for Nuclear Training are
collaborating with the MU team in providing training concepts
and operating experience for integration into the curriculum
(including the Systematic Approach to Training, safety
conscious work environment principles, and performance
objectives). We are also collaborating with the Center for
Energy Workforce Development (CEWD), an organization
that is developing avenues for promoting energy industry
careers. We plan to partner with CEWD as appropriate to
distribute information about school degree programs as they
are adopted, as well as RPT salary and career information.
3 Copyright © 2008 by ASME
The RPT program contributes financial benefits to
LSTC/ATC, the Callaway Plant and the students. Tuition
income is offsetting the salary commitment for the LSTC/ATC
instructor, creating a sustainable funding base for the program
at LSTC/ATC. In a detailed cost-benefit analysis, the
Callaway Plant internally documented a definite corporate
advantage of the degree program in reducing salaries for non-
site specific on-the-job training for newly-hired employees
with no prior experience as an RPT. The internship support
allows students to not only get valuable on-the-job training as
part of their educational program, but also allows them to earn
sufficient funds to essentially pay for the tuition for their two-
year program. To date, ATC students have received over
$400,000 in internship salaries. As of July 2007, xx students
have graduated with the RPT degree, and graduates have
taken well-paying jobs in the nuclear industry. With the
additional DOL grant partner schools initiating their
respective programs, the pool of degreed RPTs graduating will
increase significantly in approximately two years. Thus, the
realization of the goal of the RPT Associates Degree program
to increase the pool of well-trained workers is being
accomplished.
3. THE CURRICULUM
3.1. Needs Analysis:
During the initial phase of the project, a needs analysis was
performed in order to determine the requirements for an RP
academic program. The most common kind of needs analysis
for determining curricular requirements identifies the topics or
concepts that graduates should know when they have
completed the instructional program. More traditional topic-
oriented curricula typically result in learning objectives that
emphasize recall of concepts. For example, as part of the
needs analysis, we analyzed Department of Energy (DOE) [7]
and Institute of Nuclear Power Operations’ (INPO) Guidelines
for Training and Qualification of Radiological Protection
Technicians (ACAD 93-008) [8]. The analysis showed that,
of all learning objectives, 60% focused on memorization, 18%
on comprehension of ideas, 18% on application, 3% on
analysis, and less then 1% on evaluation of knowledge. Our
analysis of the kind of knowledge required by these objectives
showed that 52% focused on factual knowledge, 21% on
conceptual knowledge, 27% on procedural knowledge, and
less than 1% on meta-cognitive knowledge. Given the highly
regulated nature of the industry, accountability is essential to
regulating organizations, as well it should be. Too often,
accountability is associated with memorization because
memorization is the easiest and most reliable form of
assessment. However, with the complexity of tasks that RPTs
regularly perform and the importance of their performance to
the safety of people potentially exposed to radioactive
sources, memorization is insufficient for their preparation.
Given the complexity of their tasks and the broad range of
contexts in which radiation protection must be provided, the
ability to perform numerous problem-solving tasks is essential
to job success. Therefore, in order to assess performance
needs, a more robust form of analysis is needed for
articulating the curriculum. RPTs must be able to readily
identify sources of radiation, as well as implement methods
for mitigating risks to workers, all regulated by a variety of
governmental and professional regulations (e.g., NRC, DOE,
INPO). Memorization of facts and concepts is insufficient for
developing these skills.
3.2. Activity Analysis:
Therefore, the needs analysis began with the assumption that
the tasks RPTs perform must be identified. Knowing what
they regularly do in different contexts is key to determining
what they must know and how they must implement various
methods. That is, the activity systems in which RPTs perform
RP tasks must be analyzed. The most robust method of
analysis for analyzing workplace activity systems is activity
analysis [9]. Rather than focusing on knowledge states,
activity theory focuses on the activities in which people are
engaged, the nature of the tools they use in those activities, the
social and contextual relationships among the collaborators in
those activities, the goals and intentions of those activities,
and the objects or outcomes of those activities. The
components of any activity are then organized into activity
systems [10]. For example, RPTs regularly perform activities
such as assessing potential exposure and establishing safety
perimeters around potential radiation sources. Those activities
require a number of actions, such as operating a detector to
determine exposure or calculating exposure limits. Those
actions vary depending on the context in which they are
performed (e.g., hospital, nuclear power plant). In those
different contexts, the actions are mediated by the use of
different tools, regulated by different agencies, or subject to
different divisions of labor in the context. By observing and
interviewing experienced RPTs in different settings,
ascertaining the regulatory standards in those contexts, site-
specific procedures and documentation, it is possible to focus
on identifying what RPTs do in their jobs.
In order to perform the activity analysis, meetings with RP
personnel and health physicists were conducted to clarify the
purposes of RPTs. We also identified the tools they used to
perform the activities and the rules that circumscribe
performance. The tools involve different detection meters and
dosimetry equipment. The rules that describe acceptable
processes vary and include Department of Energy regulations,
Nuclear Regulatory regulations and guidelines from industry
associations such as INPO. Finally, we attempted to identify
any contradictions that were inherent in the systems, such as
contradictions among regulations provided by different
agencies, contradictions among the tasks that are performed,
or contradictions among the roles that are assumed by
different personnel (RPTs, health physicists, operators, etc.).
The purpose of activity analysis is to articulate the nature of
human activities in all of their contextual richness, realizing
4 Copyright © 2008 by ASME
that the same jobs performed in different contexts may appear
and function quite differently. Because the goal of the
curriculum development aspect of the DOL grant is to prepare
RPTs to work in a variety of contexts, these ecological issues
are extremely important in preparing RPTs to work in
different contexts.
3.3. Proposed Radiation Curriculum:
Based upon this analysis, a set of skills that RPTs regularly
perform were identified. From these skills, a six-course
sequence (see Table 2) of specific RPT courses was designed
that will be implemented at the five community colleges,
within the context of the school’s general education
requirements. These six courses constitute the radiation
protection curriculum for the degree, in addition to the
internship described above.
Table 2. RPT Courses in Curriculum
Radiation Fundamentals
Radiation Monitoring
Radiation Dosimetry
Radioactive Materials Handling
Radiological Safety and Response
Radiation Protection
(Internship/Practicum)
Students are also required to complete an additional 15 to 18
courses to complete the requirements for the Associate of
Applied Science degree.
3.4. Course Structure and ASK System:
Each course in the radiation curriculum represents blended
instruction. All curriculum materials are accessible from a
web site (see Figure 1 for any example of the user interface to
the web site). Those materials may be used by instructors in
classrooms in a variety of ways from the objects of lectures to
problem-based learning.
Each module or section within a course is presented in a
narrative format. Narrative representations are better
understood and far better remembered than expository
representations. For example, a module on ionization
chambers is set in the context of the task for determining dose
rate levels in and around the bowl off a steam generator. The
student is first presented with a task that needs to be
accomplished and then learns about ionization chambers in the
context of this task. Following this “primary” module, a
secondary or transfer module is presented to the student where
the same detection system is used in a different context. In
this case the student is required to transfer what they have
learned from the primary case to another case that is not
worked out. The transfer case comprises a problem to solve.
In order to help students analyze RPT processes, a set of
questions was developed (see Table 3) that would mirror what
an RP Technician would ask whenever s/he faces a new
radiation protection situation. Those questions are modeled for
students in the web-based environments in the form of an
ASK System. The ASK System is found on the left side of the
screen in Figure 1. It consists of questions that learners may
ask. Knowledge is not constructed by the system or based on
theoretical representations; rather, the learner actively
constructs knowledge by interfacing with the system, thus
affording a learner-centric mode of knowledge acquisition
within authentic contexts of real-world scenarios. At a most
basic level, an ASK System attempts to emulate a
conversation with an expert. Answers to the ASK questions
were developed from extensive interviews with expert
practitioners and are in text, diagrams and figures, video clips,
or some combination of the three.
The questions that are used to structure the Radiation
Monitoring course are given below. When learners click on
the general question, they are presented with the more specific
(indented) questions. When any of those more specific
questions are selected, the answer to the question, along with
some explanation, is presented through text, graphics, video
clips, etc
Different sets of ASK questions have been developed for each
of the courses in the curriculum.
Table 3. Radiation Monitoring ASK Questions
__________________________________________________
1. What radioactive source(s) or isotope(s) are present?
a. What source(s) may be present here and why?
b. How could the characteristics of this source(s) impact
the job task and/or work environment?
2. What do I need to know about this job task(s)?
a. What is the plan for completing this job task(s)?
b. What is the projected dose for this job task(s)?
c. What problems should I anticipate?
d. Has this task generated any operating experience
and/or event reports?
e. What regulatory guidance applies to this job task(s)?
f. What advice do those who have done this job task(s)
before have?
3. How do I perform this monitoring task(s)?
a. What is the procedure for performing this monitoring
task(s)?
b. What kind of detector/instrument should I use and
why?
c. How does the detector/instrument function?
d. How do I prepare the detector/instrument?
e. What processes are involved in performing this task?
4. How do I maintain ALARA for this job task?
5 Copyright © 2008 by ASME
a. Is there a need to determine radiation fields and stay
times?
b. Is protective clothing, shielding or other equipment
needed?
c. Is there a need for signage to be posted?
d. What additional ALARA principles apply?
5. How do I report this?
a. What records must be generated?
b. How are the results of any survey(s) evaluated?
6. How certain am I about what I am doing?
a. How should I self-monitor during this activity?
b. How should I peer-check during this activity?
4. PROGRAM STATUS
The first two courses, Radiation Fundamentals and Radiation
Monitoring, have are available to the five community colleges
during the 2007–2008 academic term. The remaining courses
will be implemented in the colleges during the fall 2008
semester. Thereafter, they will be offered as part of each
school’s regular academic scheduling. Beginning in the fall
2007, summative evaluation on the learning environments was
initiated. Based on our evaluation and assessment strategies,
the curriculum will be reviewed and refined, as needed.
Four of five partner schools are accepting students into this
new program as of the first of 2008, with the fifth school
expected to begin offering the program in the fall 2008
semester. With a projected 20 RPT students graduating
annually from these schools, we anticipate 100 new RPTs
ready to enter the nuclear industry workforce each year in this
critical area of nuclear industry need.
5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This project was funded by a grant awarded under the
President’s High Growth Job Training Initiative (#HG-15355-
06-60), as implemented by the U.S. Department of Labor’s
Employment and Training Administration. We also gratefully
acknowledge the financial support provided by a grant under
the US DOE Innovations in Nuclear Infrastructure and
Education program (#DE-FG07-03ID14531) that facilitated
the original collaboration upon which the DOL initiative was
based.
6. REFERENCES
1. "NEI Study of Engineering Career Choices," Bisconti
Research, Inc. for the Nuclear Energy Institute, Washington,
D.C. (May 2000).
2. "Results of Nuclear Industry Staffing Pipeline
Survey," Nuclear Energy Institute, Washington, D.C.
(December 20, (2001.
3. "Nuclear Pipeline Analysis," Navigant Consulting for
the Nuclear Energy Institute, (December 17, 2001).
4. “2003 Workforce Survey Findings &
Recommendations,” NEI Workforce Issues Task Force,
Nuclear Energy Institute, Washington, D.C. (January 29,
2004)
5. “Maintaining a Viable Nuclear Industry workforce,”
American Nuclear Society’s Position Statement, American
Nuclear Society, LaGrange Park, Il (June, 2006)
6. Charles Goodnight, Overcoming The Challenges of
The Ageing Nuclear Workforce & Knowledge Transfer, World
Nuclear Association Annual Symposium (2006).
7. “Radiological Control Technician Training,” DOE-
HDBK-1122-99,
http://www.eh.doe.gov/techstds/standard/hdbk1122/rad.html,
U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, D.C. (June 1999).
8. “Guidelines for Training and Qualification of
Radiological Protection Technicians,” ACAD 93-008, Institute
of Nuclear Power Operations, Atlanta, GA (August 1993).
9. Jonassen, D.H., “Learning to Solve Problems: An
Instructional Design Guide,” Pfeiffer, San Francisco, CA
(2004).
10. Jonassen, D.H., Tessmer, M., & Hannum, W.H., “Task
Analysis Methods for Instructional Design,” Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Mahwah, NJ (1999)
6 Copyright © 2008 by ASME
Figure 1. The ASK System and Web Interface to Course Modules
