Abstract
The purpose of this research was to explore perceptions of emergency alert systems used by universities. After an averted crisis at the University of Central Florida, students were surveyed about how the event changed their perception of the university’s emergency alert system. Students retrospectively rated themselves as not taking the emergency alert system seriously, but after the campus-wide lockdown on March 18th, 2013, students appeared to have a more favorable perception of the service overall. Females were more interested in safety than males. Several personality traits were also related to safety concerns: participants high in Agreeableness take the emergency alert system more seriously and participants high in Neuroticism questioned safety protocol more often. Those who scored high on Locus of Control want to be able to take action towards how the emergency alert system could affect them. Students would not admit that they failed to take the alert system seriously and they also claimed that other students took the system even less seriously than themselves. Future research should continue to explore users’ preferences in order to determine what makes a warning appear more serious than others, as well as investigate university alert systems in areas more susceptible to natural disasters or with a high crime rate.
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