Regional Differences In Earthquake Disaster Awareness And Response Of High School Teachers

Public disaster response capacity is the base of society disaster resilience, which is important for the enhancement of the society disaster coping capacity. Public disaster response capacity is closely related to their disaster awareness.The improvement of public disaster awareness is one of the preconditions to strength society disaster coping capacity. Public disaster awareness and response are affected by region-related factors. Thus, throngh "context-oriented measures" to inprove the level of public earthquake disaster awareness and response are the key to strength their capacity to cope with earthquake disaster. Disaster education is one of the basic way to improve the level of public earthquake disaster awareness and response, and teachers are the main educators, with a doubt, their kenowledge, experience, attitude and perception are the support and gurantee of school education. This paper takes 2010 M_S 7.1 Yushu earthquake-hit area in Qinghai Province and 2008 M_S 8.0 Wenchuan earthquake-hit region in Shaanxi Province as the study areas, the differences in earthquake disaster awareness and responses of high school teachers between these two areas were analyzed using questionnaire surveys and field interviews. The main conclusions are as follows:?. Regional differences in the overall characteristics of earthquake disaster awareness and responses:1. The overall earthquake disaster awareness levels and response capabilities: The overall earthquake disaster awareness levels and response capabilities of the high school teachers in the two areas are both unsatisfactory. However, the teachers in Shaanxi region are relatively better, especially at their response aspect.2. Earthquake awareness levels and response capabilities of different groups:(1)There are not any significant gender differences in terms of teacher's earthquake disaster awareness levels and response capabilities in Qinghai area; but in Shaanxi region, the overall response capability of the male is better than that of the female.(2) Teacher's earthquake disaster awareness and responses do not have statistically reliable correlations with their ages in both areas.(3) A statistically reliable positive correlation between teacher's earthquake disaster awareness and their educational background was founded in Qinghai area only.(4) In Qinghai area, the earthquake disaster awareness levels and response capabilities of the junior high school teachers are close to those of the senior high school teachers. But in Shaanxi region, the overall awareness level and response capability of the senior high school teachers are better than those of the junior high school teachers, especially at their earthquake disaster knowledge and coping skills and emotion recovery aspects.(5) No matter in Qinghai area or Shaanxi region, there are not any statistically reliable difference in the earthquake disaster awareness levels and response capabilities between the high school teachers of arts and science.3. The relation between awareness levels and response capabilities:(1) The better the earthquake awareness levels, eapecially the understanding of earthquake disaster coping skills and policy, of the high school teachers in two areas are, the more reasonable they could do in earthquake disaster responses, and the correlation in Qinghai is stronger.(2) Understanding of earthquake disaster coping skills and policy of the high school teachers in two areas influence their self and mutual rescue most, and the earthquake knowledge they have influence their emotion recovery most.(3) The intention and attitude of earthquake prevention and disaster mitigation of the high school teachers in two areas significantly influence thieir overall earthquake disaster awareness levels and response capabilities. What need to do in the work of earthquake prevention and disaster mitigation publicity and education is not only enhancing the knowledge levels, skill capabilities or policy understanding, but also facilitating the formation of better disaster mitigation intention and atmosphere.?. Regional differences in monomial/unilateral matter of fact of earthquake disaster awareness and response:1. Understanding of earthquake disaster related knowledge and skills:(1) High school teachers in both areas have poor understanding of earthquake/earthquake disaster features and terms/common knowledge of earthquake except the knowledge of “original strength of earthquake” and “earthquake magnitude”. Comparatively speaking, the understanding of earthquake disaster knowledge of the high school teachers in Shaanxi is better than that of the high school teachers in Qinghai.(2) The awareness rates of “original strength of earthquake” of high school teachers in Shaanxi region and Qinghai area are 91.3% and 77.3%, and the awareness rates of “earthquake magnitude” are 86.5% and 75.9%. The awareness rates of orther knowledge points of teachers in Shaanxi are from 30% to 65%, and those are from 15% to 55% for teachers in Qinghai.(2) High school teachers in both areas have good understanding of notes for urgent earthquake scape, and most of the awareness rates are higher than 85%. The awareness rates of the principles for victim rescue of high school teachers in Shaanxi are from 70% to 95%, those of Qinghai are from 55% to 90%. In these principles, teachers have a poor understanding of “rescue the young first” and the rates of high school teachers in Qinghai and Shaanxi are 58.3% and 71.4%. Teachers in both areas have very poor understanding of emergency medical aid skills, and the awareness rates of terchers in Shaanxi are from 4% to 16%, the rates of teachers in Qinghai are from 1% to 11%.(3) Teachers from both areas have good understanding of earthquake prevention and disaster mitigation policy and most of the awareness rates are between 65% and 80%. Most of them have a poor understanding of earthquake prevention and disaster mitigation work, and most of the awareness are below 50% except the awareness of “disaster education in school, earthquake prevention and disaster mitigation propaganda and earthquake emergency drill”.2. Responses to earthquake disaster:(1) The practice rate of the notes for emergency earthquake rescue of teachers in Shaanxi are higher than that of teachers in Qinghai obviously. The rates of Qinghai are between 35% and 70%, while the rates of Shaanxi are between 55% and 95%. A remarkable fact is that the practice rates of “crush out fire and turn off power, no fire and use flashlight, protect yourself with anything at hand”of teachers in both areas are not as high as expected.(2) The practice rates of the notes for victim rescue of the teachers in Shaanxi are higher than those of the teachers in Qinghai. The rates of the teachers in Qinghai are between 40% and 70%, and the rates of the teachers in Shaanxi are between 60% and 80%. The princle that has the lowest practice rate of the teachers in both areas are “rescue the young first”.(3) 96.7% of the teachers in Shaanxi consider “self and mutual rescue” as important(45.1%) or very important(51.6%) matters but only 52.6% of the teachers in Qinghai consider it as important(33.0%) or very important(19.6%) matters.3. Impacts of earthquake disaster experience:(1) For Earthquake and earthquake disaster characteristics: Earthquake experience brings an increase of the earthquake-related knowledge to the teachers in both reagions, but not too much. In terms of earthquake and earthquake disaster characteristic, teachers from Qinghai see a bigger rise, with an awareness rate of increase between 5-30%, while the counterpart rate in Shaanxi is between 11-16%. Regarding to the earthquake-related terms, there is not a significant increase of teachers from both reagions except “earthquake magnitude” and “seismic intensity”. The awareness rate increase in Shaanxi and Qinghai are 4-14% and 0.5-6% respectively, which we can find that teachers in Shaanxi see a bigger rise. The awareness rate of increase in Shaanxi and Qing hai are 4-14% and 0.5-6% respectively, which we can find that teachers in Shaanxi see a bigger rise. In terms of the awareness rate increase of “earthquake magnititude” are 65.7% and 62.8% in Qinghai and Shaanxi respectively; and awareness rate increase of “seismic intensity” are 35.6% and 50.4% in Qinghai and Shaanxi respectively.(2) For earthquake disaster coping skills: Because of earthquake experience, teachers in the both reagions saw a significant inrease of earthquake disaster copong skills, and the proportion of teachers which thought they had increased skills to total from Shaanxi is bigger. The proportions are 75-98% and 70-87% in Shaanxi and Qinghai respectively. Among which, the largest proportion of teachers increased the escape skills in both reagions(86.4% and 97.7% in Qinghai and Shaanxi respectively) and the proportion about medical skills is the lowest(70.7% and 75.8% in Qinghai and Shaanxi respectively).(3) For earthquake disaster risk reduction policy. Because of earthquake experience, teachers in the both reagions see a significant inrease of knowledge about disaster risk reduction policy. The increase in Shaanxi is 93.9%, which is bigger than Qinghai(76.5%).4. Access to earthquake knowledge and earthquake disaster coping skills:(1) Regarding to the frequentness of all of the new and old sources that can be used to gain earthquake knowledge and earthquake disaster coping skills, there is higher frequentness in shaaxi than Qinghai.(2) In Shaanxi region, new and old media such as broadcast, television, newspaper and internet, promotion of school and government are the main source used by teachers in shaaxi.(3) In Qinghai area, there is no advantage in new and old media, what is more, fewer teachers via promotion of school and government gain knowledge and skill(even lower than those via temple or religious people). Earthquake experience play the most important role in acquire of knowledge and skill. Study in their childhood and word of mouth from family and friend are still the main soucrce that teachers in Qinghai using to obtain knowledge and skill.5. Opinions about disaster education and disaster risk reduction:(1) Teachers in both regions think that strength the promotion of government should be the first choice, which is followed by school education. While, internet, short message serivice, and word of mouth from family and friend attract not much attention from teachers in both regions. Teachers in Shaanxi emphasize more on promotion of meida and government, but in shaaxi, the role of “Popular science” attracted more attention.(2) In Qinghai, earthquake earthquake monitoring and prediction, formal disaster education and building seismic safety assessment and fortified are those work should be made more effort. In Shaanxi, earthquake earthquake monitoring and prediction attracted the most attention. Apart from earthquake earthquake monitoring and prediction attracted the most attention, teachers in Qinghai have a stronger desire to strengthen most of the other earthquake disaster reduction work.Based on the analysis results above, the present paper proposed several suggestions about the work of earthquake prevention and disaster mitigation propaganda and education:1. Suggestions for both areas: Reinforce the overall awareness levels of earthquake disasters of the teachers in both areas.(2) Enrich the understanding of emergency medical aid knowledge and earthquake prevention and disaster mitigation work.2. Suggestions for Qinghai area:(1) Speed up to carry out and complete earthquake prevention and disaster mitigation propaganda and education.(2) Pay more attention to the earthquake prevention and disaster mitigation propaganda and education for elder teachers.(3) While reinforce the propaganda by government and school, paying more attention to books on popular science, and ues public media to propagandize earthquake prevention and disaster mitigation in the areas where are available.3. Suggestions for Shaanxi area:(1) Enhance the awareness levels of junior high school teachers particularly.(2) There may be a need of carrying out special work to female teachers.(3) Take good use of government, school, Internet, public media etc, complete the construction of the two channels —— books on popular science and mobilephones.