Development of Evaluation Criteria for Training Fire Students to Enable New Rescue Roles in Vietnam

Abstract

The literature on the appropriate education criteria for training young emergency responders in developing countries is scarce. A gap exists between general education and emergency responder education regarding the criteria used for designing education courses and evaluating students. This study reviewed the criteria used at the University of Fire Prevention and Fighting in Vietnam. Although the university had used Bloom’s taxonomy, one of the well-known evaluation criteria for general education programs, in addition to the professional criteria for emergency management, only the bottom three levels of the taxonomy were considered. The authors designed a new training course to prepare and conduct landslide rescue exercises, and applied all six levels of Bloom’s taxonomy to evaluate students’ performance and responses. The course included lectures, an exercise, and a hot debriefing session for 52 third-year students. Consideration of all levels of Bloom’s taxonomy enabled the identification of differences in learning performance between exercise participants and observers among the students. The evaluation results based on the general and professional education criteria differed regarding the performance of students with work experience. This study showed that the full use of Bloom’s taxonomy could help improve firefighters’ training courses. Assessing students from different perspectives using both general and professional education evaluation criteria is important for measuring students’ diverse abilities.