Wedad H. Al-Dahhan, Khalid Zainulabdeen, Shams A. Ismeal, Muna Bufaroosha, Emad Yousif

Fire: A dual force in chemistry – A safety culture questionnaire for chemistry students

Introduction

Fire: a dual force in chemistry – a safety culture questionnaire for chemistry students. Assess chemistry students' fire safety knowledge and safety culture using a questionnaire. Discover insights and recommendations for enhancing practical training and awareness in chemistry departments.

Abstract

The Chemistry Department constantly works to enhance students' safety awareness through courses, seminars, and symposiums. One of the most critical safety topics is fire safety guidelines. A questionnaire was prepared to assess the students' understanding of fires, and 127 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the Chemistry Department participated. The questions were prepared and focused on essential topics within the topic of the fire, through which the extent of students' knowledge of the research topic can be accurately determined. The Chemistry Department needs to make more efforts to enhance the safety culture, even though the students' answers can be considered valuable information. The students' suggestions came mainly from their need for more practical practices, firefighting activities, and the implementation of evacuation plans.

Review

This paper addresses a crucial aspect of academic laboratory safety by investigating the fire safety knowledge and safety culture among chemistry students. Utilizing a questionnaire administered to 127 undergraduate and postgraduate students, the study aimed to assess their understanding of fire safety guidelines, a topic consistently emphasized by the Chemistry Department through various educational initiatives. The focus on practical safety awareness is highly relevant, contributing to the ongoing efforts to cultivate a robust safety culture within scientific disciplines. While the initiative to quantify student understanding of fire safety is commendable, the abstract leaves several critical details undefined. The questionnaire's design is described as focusing on "essential topics," yet the specific content or categories of questions are not elaborated upon, making it difficult to assess the depth or breadth of the knowledge probed. Furthermore, the strong claim in the title, "Fire: A dual force in chemistry," is not addressed or explored within the abstract's summary of the study's scope or findings. The abstract concludes that more departmental effort is needed, supported by student suggestions for more practical training and evacuation drills, but it lacks specific quantitative or qualitative data from the questionnaire itself that would substantiate these conclusions or highlight specific knowledge gaps. Despite these omissions in the abstract, the study's central premise provides a valuable foundation for enhancing safety education. The identification of student suggestions, particularly the call for more hands-on practical experience, firefighting activities, and evacuation plan implementation, offers concrete actionable insights for departments looking to improve their safety protocols. Future presentations of this work would significantly benefit from a detailed exposition of the questionnaire's content, the specific findings that led to the stated conclusions regarding departmental efforts, and a clearer elucidation of the "dual force" concept as it relates to fire in a chemistry context. Such details would allow for a more comprehensive understanding of the students' current safety landscape and the potential impact of targeted educational interventions.

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