Myths And Misconceptions About Disasters: Do Students In The Field Know Better?

Abstract

Disaster myths pose a great challenge in disaster risk management all over the world. These misconceptions mean barriers to disaster higher education as well. This research is designed to examine these beliefs among disaster management students at the National University of Public Service, Hungary, as well as in a control group compiled from students from three other Hungarian universities. Based on the methodology of research published by David Alexander, a questionnaire was edited with 19 false statements about disaster events. Respondents had to evaluate them on a Likert scale from 1 to 5, where 1 means "completely disagree" and 5 means "completely agree". Strong agreement was expressed for some of the misconceptions regarding disasters (e.g. unburied bodies constitute a serious health hazard), and to a lesser degree for others (e.g. disasters cannot be managed systematically). The results of the control group reached similar values to those of the test groups, however in some cases the former tend to be more skeptical about the statements. Although Hungarian students shared the same beliefs as US and Italian students, the Hungarians seem to be less critical of the statements. These disaster myths create a serious problem in disaster higher education and have a great impact on future disaster managers in the field.