Title

Taking Emergency Warnings Seriously

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to explore perceptions of emergency alert systems used by universities. After an averted crisis at the University of Central Florida, students were surveyed about how the event changed their perception of the university's emergency alert system. Students retrospectively rated themselves as not taking the emergency alert system seriously, but after the campus-wide lockdown on March 18th, 2013, students appeared to have a more favorable perception of the service overall. Females were more interested in safety than males. Several personality traits were also related to safety concerns: participants high in Agreeableness take the emergency alert system more seriously and participants high in Neuroticism questioned safety protocol more often. Those who scored high on Locus of Control want to be able to take action towards how the emergency alert system could affect them. Students would not admit that they failed to take the alert system seriously and they also claimed that other students took the system even less seriously than themselves. Future research should continue to explore users' preferences in order to determine what makes a warning appear more serious than others, as well as investigate university alert systems in areas more susceptible to natural disasters or with a high crime rate.

Publication Date

1-1-2014

Publication Title

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society

Volume

2014-January

Number of Pages

1129-1133

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1177/1541931214581236

Socpus ID

84957613052 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84957613052

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