Who Needs a PHD? This article, from Fire Chief Magazine, explores the idea of creating a doctorate level of education for fire service personnel with recommended areas of study. If I were going to persue a doctorate I would problably use their recommendations to design it.
I think the conclusion taken from the 1966 Wingspread Conference Report identifying the “mastery of the scientific method” as the first educational need of the fire service is pretty profound. I find it odd however, that teaching the scientific method is not part of the FESHE (Fire Emergency Services Higher Education Committee) curricullum for lower division course work- such as in the curriculum for the "Fire Behavior" where one of the course goals is to have students recall the three states of matter (solid, liquid, gas.) I find this particullarly amusing/frustrating because this is also a goal of the CA Educational Standards- for the 3rd grade.
Here is an interesting story from the article- note the date- almost 140 yrs ago!
In 1868, Sir Eyre Massey Shaw, fire chief of the London Fire Brigade, visited major fire departments in the United States and made several observations, including the following:
“When I was last in America, it struck me very forcibly that, although most of the chiefs were intelligent and zealous in their work, not one that I met made even a pretension to the kind of professional knowledge which I consider so essential. Indeed, one went as far as to say that the only way to learn the business of a fireman was to go to fires — a statement about as monstrous and contrary to reason as if he had said that the only way to become a surgeon would be to commence cutting off limbs without any knowledge of anatomy or of the implements required.”
The article goes on to discuss the need to apply research to the decision making involved in the adoption of policies and procedures or aquiring new equipment.
An example of the lack of research in Fire Service policy that comes to mind is the entire issue of Critical Incident Stress Debriefing. This practice was adopted and implemented in departments throughout the US (where they still exisist today)almost with a fear of liability if it WASN'T adopted. But research has shown that not only does it not work..it may even do more harm to than the inital incident caused! Read more about the findings by Gist & Woodall by clicking here.
The same problem exists with the adoption of the Temporal-Three patterm for fire alarms. Prolex found:
In North America, it is now required that buildings equipped with a fire alarm system sound the Temporal-Three (T-3) pattern as the evacuation signal. It is intended that the T-3 pattern will become the standardized alarm signal heard around the world that will unequivocally mean "evacuate the building immediately". Since new and refurbished buildings are now equipped with this new signal, we need to ascertain if the public recognizes this sound as an evacuation signal. The objectives of the study were to assess the public's recollection, identification and perceived urgency of the T-3. Data was collected through a field study in public buildings in the Ottawa area with 307 participants. Results showed that participants often reported that they had heard the T-3 before, although they could rarely correctly identify it as a fire alarm or evacuation signal. In fact, the T-3 was usually associated with domestic signals such as a busy phone signal or the sound of an alarm clock. Further, the T-3 was not judged as a signal conveying urgency. The findings suggest that considerable public education is necessary to improve the public's identification of the T-3 signal. It is also suggested that it is unrealistic to expect that occupants will immediately start evacuation upon hearing such a signal and that further information provided to the occupants will always be necessary to prompt evacuation movement.
Unfortunently this research wasn't conducted until after the T-3 became part of the code. Perhaps if a scientific methodology was employed in the design, they would have a signal that people would both recognize and respond appropriately to with minimal training or education.
Click here for the full report
Click here to access the list of schools offering degrees and programs of study in Fire Technolgy both on campus and at a distance.
Click here for the Santa Ana College Fire Technology website.
