Abstract
This paper reports the usefulness of fire drills held within each university building. In universities, the fire drill shall be site specific because the university buildings have individual risks. The main objectives of the fire drills are: to allow building occupants to familiarize themselves with location of fire equipment and escape routes; and to provide fire safety education through the hands-on training. After the fire drill, survey interviews with participants (N = 130) were conducted. The questions consisted of five components: personal characteristics; knowledge of fire equipment and experience in using it; education effects; perception of physical risks expressed; and participant's evaluation of the fire drill. In order to make clear the relationship between the usefulness evaluation and other participant's characteristics, the interview data were analyzed using quantification method of the second type, which is a method of discriminant analysis for qualitative data. Our findings confirmed that the prime important factor was the education effects.
