Building Users’ Appraisal of Effective Fire Safety Management for Building Facilities in Malaysian Higher Education Institutions: A Pilot Study

Ibrahim Yakubu Ebenehi, Sulzakimin Mohamed, Norliana Sarpin, Seow Ta Wee, Adejoh Ahmodu Adaji

Abstract

Enormous investments had been made in Malaysian education sector of the economy especially in the higher education towards fulfilling a target of creating an attractive environment, conducive to learning and academic excellence. Building facilities account for a significant portion of investments in the sector. Since no building has immunity against fire, it has become imperative to research ways of ensuring the safety of built facilities and users from fire disaster. This research proposed a framework for effective fire safety management for buildings in Malaysian Higher Education Institutions. The report aims to display the results of the pilot study conducted among staff and students from selected universities in Johor Malaysia before carrying out the core survey to collect information from respondents. The pilot study sought to minimise errors in the questionnaire, makes the survey runs smoothly, facilitate the response rate, and provide a useful and valuable inquiry. The results include the descriptive statistics, reliability test, content and construct validity, and the normality test. The summary of the reliability test for each construct of the users’ questionnaire, are Management, 0.910; fire safety equipment/system, 0.907; building components safety design, 0.917. Furthermore, users’ awareness and knowledge of fire safety, 0.948; users’ attitude on fire safety, 0.885 and the effectiveness of fire safety management have a value 0.913 for Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient. The aggregate Descriptive Statistics results for Users/Occupants Questionnaire show mean values between the ranges of 3.34 to 3.76. The questionnaire had low dispersion and standard deviation values of less than 1. The values of skewness and kurtosis were all within the recommended threshold of -/+2, an indication that all the constructs of the study were normally distributed. The results are a favourable indicator for proceeding with the core survey using the instrument.




Keywords


buildings; Malaysia; pilot study; effective fire safety management; higher education institutions

Full Text:

PDF


References


Abdul Rahim, N., Taib, M., & Othuman Mydin, M. A. (2014). Investigation of Fire Safety Awareness and Management in Mall. MATEC Web of Conferences, 10, 06004. doi: 10.1051/matecconf/20141006004

Agyekum, K., Ayarkwa, J., & Amoah, P. (2016). Challenges to Fire Safety Management in Multi-Storey Students’ Hostels. Modern Management Science & Engineering, 4(1), 53–61

Awang, A. (2014). A handbook on Structural Equation Modelling. Selangor: MPWS.

Billington, M. J., Copping, A., & Ferguson, A. (2008). Means of escape from fire. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

British Safety Council. (2017, August). Fire Safety Management Audit. Retrieved from https://www.britsafe.org/media/3754/ma178-fire-safety-audit-spec-v3.pdf

Chow, W. K. (2001). Review on fire safety management and application to Hong Kong. International Journal on Engineering Performance-Based Fire Codes, 3(1), 52–58.

Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2013). Research methods in education. London: Routledge.

Dunn, T. J., Baguley, T., & Brunsden, V. (2013). From alpha to omega: A practical solution to the pervasive problem of internal consistency estimation. British Journal of Psychology, 105(3), 399–412. doi: 10.1111/bjop.12046

Ebenehi, I.Y., Mohamed, S., Sarpin, N. (2018). Fire Safety Management for Buildings in Malaysian Universities: A Conceptual Framework. International Journal of Environmental & Design and Construction Management, 4, 3–7.

Fink, A. (2017). How to conduct surveys: A step-by-step guide (6th ed.). Los Angeles: SAGE.

George, D., & Mallery, P. (2008). SPSS for Windows step by step. A simple study guide and reference. Boston: Pearson.

Gollner, M., Kimball, A., & Vecchiarelli, T. (2012, November). Fire safety design and sustainable buildings: challenges and opportunities. Retrieved from http://www.gollnerfire.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Foundation_Sustainable_Building_Design_Symposium_Proceedings-Final.pdf

Hassanain, M. A. (2009). Approaches to qualitative fire safety risk assessment in hotel facilities. Structural Survey, 27(4), 287–300. doi: 10.1108/02630800910985081

Hassanain, M. A., Hafeez, M. A., & Sanni-Anibire, M. O. (2017). A ranking system for fire safety performance of student housing facilities. Safety Science, 92, 116–127. doi: 10.1016/j.ssci.2016.10.002

Howarth, D. J., & Kara‐Zaitri, C. (1999). Fire safety management at passenger terminals. Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, 8(5), 362–369. doi: 10.1108/09653569910298288

Hung, Y. C. (2012, September). A Study on the Fire Safety Management of Public Rental Housing in Hong Kong. Retrieved from http://lbms03.cityu.edu.hk/theses/c_ftt/engd-ca-b41999095f.pdf

International Code Council. (2018). 2018 International building code. Retrieved from http://shop.iccsafe.org/codes/2018-international-codes-and-references/2018-international-building-code-and-references.html

Kironji, M. (2015). Evaluation of Fire Protection Systems in Commercial Highrise Buildings for Fire Safety Optimization: A Case of Nairobi Central Business District. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 5(10), 1–8.

Mathers, N., Fox, N., Hunn, A., & Group, T. (1998). Surveys and Questionnaires. Sheffield: NHS Executive, Trent.

Muijs, D. (2010). Doing qualitative research in education with SPSS. London : SAGE Publications.

Naziris, I. A., Lagaros, N. D., & Papaioannou, K. (2016). Selection and Resource Allocation Model for Upgrading Fire Safety of Historic Buildings. Journal of Management in Engineering, 32(4), 05016004. doi: 10.1061/(asce)me.1943-5479.0000424

Pallant, J. (2013). SPSS Survival Manual. Maidenhead : Open University Press.

Ramachandran, G. (1999). Fire safety management and risk assessment. Facilities, 17(9/10), 363–377. doi: 10.1108/02632779910278782

Sanni-Anibire, M. O., & Hassanain, M. A. (2015). An integrated fire safety assessment of a student housing facility. Structural Survey, 33(4/5), 354–371. doi: 10.1108/ss-03-2015-0017

Society of Fire Protection Engineers. (2006). SFPE Engineering Guide to Application of Risk Assessment. Gaithersburg: SFPE.

Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2014). Using multivariate statistics (6th ed.). Harlow: Pearson.

Tavakol, M., & Dennick, R. (2011). Making sense of Cronbach's alpha. International journal of medical education, 2, 53–55. doi: 10.5116/ijme.4dfb.8dfd

Zhang, Y., Zhang, M., & Qian, C. (2018). System dynamics analysis for petrochemical enterprise fire safety system. Procedia Engineering, 211, 1034–1042. doi: 10.1016/j.proeng.2017.12.107


Article Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Metrics powered by PLOS ALM

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.




Copyright (c) 2018 Ibrahim Yakubu Ebenehi, Sulzakimin Mohamed, Norliana Sarpin, Seow Ta Wee, Adejoh Ahmodu Adaji

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.