Anticipating Community Drug Problems in Washington, DC, and Portland, Oregon, 1984-1990 (ICPSR 9924)
Student and Staff Comprehension of Emergency Operations Plans, United States, 2018-2021 (ICPSR 38431)
In this study, the research team investigated emergency operations plans (EOPs) content and comprehension in a purposive sample of 10 U.S. schools using a phased, mixed-methods study design. The four primary goals of the study were to:
- Gain access to EOPs for 10 schools and examine their appearance, layout, and content, and empirically document the comprehensiveness of EOP materials according to federal guidelines;
- Assess access to emergency planning efforts and perceptions of emergency preparedness, including to what extent different types of staff members have read and received training on their school's EOP, serve on emergency planning or school crisis response teams, and believe that their school has prepared them for a violent event (e.g., an armed intruder incident);
- Assess staff and student comprehension of emergency concepts and protocols and identify areas of high and low comprehension and respondent- and school-level correlates of comprehension; and
- Understand from the perspectives of staff, students, district representatives, local law enforcement officials, and other key stakeholders how EOPs and school emergency preparedness more broadly could be improved and what are the most pervasive challenges and vulnerabilities in school emergency preparedness efforts.
The study was conducted in four phases. In Phase 1, the team recruited 10 schools and gained privileged access to their EOPs. A comprehensive rubric was developed based largely on guidance put forth in 2013 by six federal agencies, including the United States Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Each EOP was systematically reviewed using this rubric; school-specific and aggregated analyses were conducted to identify common strengths and limitations of the plans. In Phase 2, leveraging insights gained from school-specific analyses of EOPs, the team developed and administered comprehension surveys for staff and students to evaluate the extent to which each school community was knowledgeable of the concepts, protocols, and other details described in their plans. Following survey data collection, the team conducted extensive analyses to identify areas with high and low levels of comprehension and uncover statistical associations between comprehension and respondent characteristics (e.g., staff type, years employed at the school, perceptions of preparedness).
In Phase 3, for a subset of schools, the team conducted site visits and group interviews with students and different types of staff regarding their perceptions of their school's EOP, their school's vulnerability to extreme violence, and how emergency planning and preparedness could be improved. Finally, in Phase 4, the team analyzed and synthesized the results from each data collection activity to draw conclusions about EOP development and emergency preparedness and develop actionable recommendations for enhancing safety efforts in K-12 educational settings.
Qualitative data (interviews, focus groups, drill observations) are not currently available for this collection.