Disaster Preparedness Education: Construction Curriculum Requirements to Increase Students’ Preparedness in Pre- and Post-Disaster Activities

Abstract

Students are one of the vulnerable groups of people affected by a disaster, as they suffer both physically and mentally. Concerns are rising, as educational institutions lack adequate emergency programs to prepare students for disasters. Moreover, the integration of disaster preparedness in the coursework is rarely done for students with majors such as construction. This study performs a comprehensive literature review to integrate the research related to students’ disaster preparedness and provide strategies to increase students’ disaster preparedness. To fulfill this aim, 83 of the most recent scholarly articles were collected and scrutinized. The current trends in disaster preparedness curriculums in construction programs, as well as other majors, were studied, strategies for enhancing these programs espoused by researchers were investigated, and challenges/barriers to providing disaster preparedness education were analyzed. It was concluded that the integration of hands-on practices of rescue activities into construction curriculums, along with theoretical knowledge of disasters, significantly helps students to be prepared for a disaster and for post-disaster mitigation efforts hence should be included in the disaster preparedness curriculum. Lack of resources and trained personnel is one of the major causes of insufficient integration of disaster preparedness materials in the course curriculum. This study will assist in updating the existing programs, enhancing construction students’ disaster preparedness, addressing potential challenges to the advancement of knowledge, and reducing damages.

Why is didactic transposition in disaster education needed by prospective elementary school teachers?

“…Disaster risk reduction is disaster management that emphasizes disaster management efforts on disaster risk identification in the form of vulnerabilities and hazards and developing the capacity to reduce disaster risk [ 2 , [50] , [51] , [52] ]. It shows that traditional knowledge, scientific knowledge, and or hybrid knowledge about disaster have essential functions and roles in reducing disaster risk [ 53 , 54 ].…”

The relationship between knowledge and disaster preparedness of undergraduates responding to forest fires

“…Efforts to overcome these limitations may be made by building a knowledge platform for students (Bhandari & Takahashi 2022), training (Juanita, Suratmi & Maghfiroh 2018) and simulation to improve disaster preparedness (Gunawan et al 2019). In line with this, according to research from Nipa et al (2020), educational institutions such as universities do not have emergency programs to prepare students for disasters.…”

“…The conversion of land prepared for agriculture, oil palm plantations, population growth and increasingly hot climate conditions (Hoscilo et al 2011;Wulandari & Yanti 2019) are the main causes of regular forest and land fires. Indonesia's forest and land fires occur every year (Adrianto et al 2020;Syaufina 2018;Thoha et al 2019) Students, being a vulnerable group, are also at high risk when a disaster occurs (Greer, Wu & Murphy 2018;Nipa et al 2020) because of their lack of experience in dealing with disasters. On the other hand, universities are located in West Kalimantan, which is prone to forest and land fires.…”

Preparedness and Adaptive Capacity of Students for Landslide Disasters in Karangkobar, Central Java, Indonesia

“…Preparedness is defined as a series of actions taken to anticipate disasters through appropriate and efficient organization and steps (2). Preparedness in dealing with disasters is one measure to determine vulnerability (21). As for the organizing actions of disaster preparedness, (1) an early warning system, as a warning sign of danger in a quick time by the competent authority to the community about the possibility of a disaster; (2) Preparedness plan, is the planning and selection of appropriate steps to ensure the availability of resources; and (3) contingency plans, namely sustainable plans in dealing with situations that are not certain to occur (22).…”