An important goal in occupational safety is "active caring." Employees demonstrate active caring (AC)

about the safety of their co-workers when they identify environmental hazards and unsafe work practices and then implement appropriate corrective actions for these unsafe conditions or behaviors. Three factors hypothesized to increase thc propensity for an employee to actively care for safety are (1) high self-esteem. (2) optimism, and (3) group cohesiveness. Applied & Preventlw Psychology (Winter 1995) attempted to establish empirical support for the AC hypothesis by fitting the model E(y) = Po + Plxl + P2x2 + P3x1, where y = AC score (measuring active caring on a 15-poinl scale)

x, = Self-esteem score x2 = Optimism score x3 = Group cohesion score The regression analysis, based on data collected for n = 31 hourly workers at a large fiber-manufacturing plant, yielded a multiple coefficient of determination ot R' = .362.

a. Interpret the value of R2.

b. Use the R2 value to test the global utility of the modcl. Use a = .05