Basic Situation and Education Needs of Disaster Literacy of College Students

College students are a special group of people with strong thinking and reasoning flexibility.^{Reference Niu, Zhang and Yang5} They can adapt to challenging situations and analyze and handle multiple problems at the same time. However, compared with the general public, college students have a weaker ability to cope with disasters and are often overlooked in disaster preparedness.

The study indicates that disaster literacy of college students is generallyata low level. Disaster literacy scores in this study are ranked from highest to lowest, knowledge literacy is highest, behavioral literacy is lowest, and belief literacy and discriminative literacy are ranked in the middle. This finding is consistent with the relevant research results of the KABP model.^{Reference Bagheri Amiri, Doosti-Irani and Sedaghat6,Reference Goh and Chua7}

In the training of talents, the change of knowledge is easier to achieve, but the change of attitude is more difficult and takes longer. Moreover, the change of personal behavior is more difficult and time-consuming than the other 2. It takes the longest time, and this is the goal of our higher education. Therefore, the results of this study should attract the attention of families, universities, governments, and society, and strive to build a disaster literacy cognitive structure system for college students, create a more scientific, reasonable, safe, and stable learning environment, and thereby reduce potential risks to public safety.

In the context of this study, the disaster literacy education of college students in central China is urgently needed, especially for medical students. The way for college students to obtain disaster knowledge and information is a single one, and most of them have not received a systematic disaster literacy education. Compared with foreign drone simulation of large-scale casualty education,^{Reference Jain, Sibley and Stryhn8} interdisciplinary collaborative disaster education,^{Reference Jasper, Wanner and Berg9} etc., China’s disaster education resources are scarce and the education approach is single. Related courses offered by schools are also limited to knowledge transfer, with lack of disaster prevention and relief exercises, lack of simulation experience of disaster scene scenarios, and lack of corresponding content in continuing medical education.^{Reference Li, Li and Chen10-Reference Li, Turale and Stone12}

At the same time, affective domain ability considerations related to the educational goals emerged. One of the characteristics of disaster emotional education is the application of communication, empathy, and caring ability in the rescue practice. The decisive factor of disaster literacy is the inner belief of individual scare for life and respect for life, that is, caring for life is regarded as a guide to all actions, and sublimation as a stable inner quality of the individual. However, emotional education is often overlooked.^{Reference Evans and Allen13} Both domestic colleges and universities and governments share responsibility for influencing the levels of students toward disaster literacy. This can be achieved by establishing a scientific and standardized system of disaster literacy education and providing informed integration, diversified educational approaches, and stratified implementation.

Socio-demographic Features Affect Disaster Literacy Level of College Students in Central China

The results of this study show that as the age and grade increase, the total disaster literacy of college students increases. First-year freshmen have just entered the university gates and are exposed to basic courses. The knowledge and access to information are narrow. Usually when entering the third year of university, students begin to learn the professional courses, and the cross-disciplinary and social coordination of disaster rescue is very strong. Therefore, with the increase of the ratio of professional courses to social practice, the disaster literacy of college students increases. Even so, the overall level is still low. Among all dimensions, the third grade has the highest knowledge and belief literacy, the fourth grade has the highest discriminative and behavioral literacy, and the first grade has the lowest total scores and scores in each dimension. Therefore, it is suggested that colleges and universities establish a disaster literacy education system based on the actual curriculum arrangements of college students, and implement it in different levels.

In this survey, the total scores of disaster literacy of medical students are higher than that of nonmedical students, but their discriminative and behavioral literacy are low, reflecting the lack of disaster literacy education in colleges and universities. In all dimensions, medical students have higher knowledge and behavioral literacy scores than nonmedical students. This is due to the systematic learning of disaster-related knowledge and skills such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation, bleeding, and fracture first aid by most medical students during their studies. This is especially difficult for nonmedical students. However, nonmedical students are the main group of university campuses and the main force to participate in self-rescue and mutual rescue when disasters occur in the future. Medical students are an important force to disseminate disaster rescue knowledge and skills in the future. Therefore, schools should strengthen in-depth education that attaches great importance to emergency rescue and emergency escape skills for medical students, and help nonmedical students to understand disasters in a comprehensive manner, establish awareness of public safety risks, and cultivate disaster self-rescue and mutual rescue capabilities.

This study finds that the total disaster literacy scores and scores of urban students are higher than those of rural students, which may be related to the fact that urban community services and publicity are far better than rural conditions. The low level of education of rural people in China,^{Reference Liu, Li and Jin14} the lack of access to information resources,^{Reference Li and Yeung15} and the lack of education for left-behind children in family education have all hindered the formation of disaster literacy among rural students in rural China.^{Reference Pan16} At the same time, this study finds that mothers are better able to improve their children’s disaster literacy than their father’s education and career.

In all dimensions, college students whose mothers are public officials and civil servants have the highest scores in intellectual and discriminatory literacy, while college students whose mothers are enterprise workers have the highest scores in belief and behavioral literacy. Therefore, it is recommended that the Chinese government and universities strengthen public education for disaster literacy of rural students and extend public education to the positive education of students’ families, especially mothers and children, so as to raise the whole society’s awareness of public safety risks and strengthen disaster response guidance for college students to create a good atmosphere for college students and their families to scientifically respond to sudden public safety risks.

In addition to the place of residence mentioned above, parental education and maternal occupation affected the disaster literacy level of college students. The mother is more able to improve the child’s disaster literacy in comparison to the father’s education and occupation in a correct way. In all the dimensions involved, college students whose mothers are engaged in public institution and civil servant occupations get the highest score in knowledge and discriminative literacy, while college students whose mothers are employed by the enterprises have the highest score in belief and behavioral literacy. Therefore, the government and universities are advised that inclusion of extended family education and positive education for mothers enhances public education in disaster literacy of rural college students, and comprehensively raise the social awareness of public safety risks. Equally important are the disaster response skills, which should be a component of the public education, and should be emphasized during the study year.

In this study, students who have experienced disasters and received relevant training have significantly higher total scores in disaster literacy and scores in various dimensions than those who have not, especially in discriminative and behavioral literacy. This shows that the deeper the mastery of knowledge, the more it is conducive to the realization of discriminative and behavioral changes.^{Reference Černe, Hernaus and Dysvik17,Reference Tkachuck, Schulenberg and Lair18} Therefore, Chinese university student managers should pay attention to their academic planning, make correct curriculum arrangements, and provide a variety of learning forms to achieve zero-distance integration and transformation of knowledge and skills. The total disaster literacy scores of Chinese university students’ families in disaster prevention work are higher than those in the unsuccessful. This suggests that China’s colleges and universities should not only focus on the cultivation of university students’ ability, but also extend to the family and transform into families.

The research team designs this research and obtains the research results based on the previous research, but there are some limitations. This study uses convenient sampling, which is limited in the representativeness of the sample. At the same time, because there is no unified and standard disaster literacy assessment questionnaire at home and abroad, the questionnaire in this study is designed by the Delphi method based on the relevant model. The content of the questionnaire and the setting of the question may have limitations. In the future, the research team will expand the sample and continue the in-depth research related to the disaster literacy scale.