Expert answer:Checklist sheet for a field research
Expert answer:Please read the analysis of the field study that is attached below, than create a checklist sheet in an excel file like the one attached below. The checklist should be depending the study, and what questions in the checklist needed to complete the observation of this study as a field research.
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observation_collection_instrument_.xlsx
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University of Delaware
Disaster Research Center
Preliminary Paper
#254
THE DISASTER RESEARCH CENTER (DRC)
FIELD STUDIES OF ORGANIZED BEHAVIOR
IN THE CRISIS TIME PERIOD OF
DISASTERS
E. L. Quarantelli
1997
The Disaster Research Center (DRC) Field Studies
of Organized Behavior in the
Crisis Time Period of Disasters
E. L. Quarantelli
This chapter discusses the methodology of the field research undertaken by the Disaster
Research Center (DRC) between its formation in 1963 to 1989. During that time DRC
conducted more than 450 field studies of community crises, the great bulk of them involving
natural or technological disaster agents. The major focus was on organized behavior whether in
formal organizations or informal and emergent groups, and usually about the social entities
involved in the preparedness and response activities in the crisis. After noting the background
context within which the Center operated, this chapter summarizes the general methodological
approach taken. It depicts the substantial attention DRC paid to the prefield training that was
given to the graduate students who did most of the field work. Also described are the in-field
procedures followed, particularly the open-ended type of interviewing conducted, the kinds of
participant observations made and the systematic document collecting that was done. We also
note certain post-field procedures systematized by the Center to measure the quantity and to
insure the quality of the gathered data. In the conclusion, we suggest four general implications
or lessons for other researchers who might want to follow the DRC model.
INTRODUCTION
DRC since its inception 35 years ago to the present time has used most social science
methodologies in its data gathering activities. Even in the first decade or so of its operations,
these included as examples, laboratory studies of simulated police department radio dispatching
rooms (Drabek 1970); participant observations of civil disturbance situations (Ponting,
Fitzpatrick and Quarantelli 1974), content analyses of disaster films (Quarantelli 1980), and
traditional population surveys of impacted communities (in the 1972 Wilkes Barre flood and the
1974 Xenia tornado; see Taylor, Ross and Quarantelli 1976).
Likewise, different units of
analysis have been utilized as well as different time periods of disasters. Thus, the Center has
looked at the full range from the micro, the individual, to the macro, the nation state or society.
There have been studies, but not equally, of the mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery
aspects of disasters.
However, our intent here is to depict only what was the major although not exclusive field
research methodology of the Center from 1963 through 1989. In that time, the primary focus
was on organized behavior in the emergency/crisis periods of disasters (the latter being what is
currently known as the later preparedness and early response phases of disasters). Organized
behavior included not only formal organizations but also informal and emergent groups.
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The focus on organized behavior was a very conscious one. It is impossible in this
chapter to detail the complex of theoretical, professional and practical reasons for the choice.
Suffice it to say here that a major reason was that while the earliest studies in the area had
already established the parameters of the behavior of individuals in crises (see Quarantelli 1988),
almost nothing was known about group behavior. Also, field studies of persons undertaken
during the actual crisis times of disasters always have difficult sampling problems with an
unknown universe of participants, whereas the universe of most organized groups in a
community is known and finite (e.g., typically there is only one fire and police department, a
handful of mass media outlets and hospitals, etc.). Finally, even in the pioneering days of
disaster research it was evident that the most effective and efficient planning and managing
measures for responses during crises would have to be primarily carried out by organizations and
could not be done by individual households.
The basic model DRC employed was set early. It was initially drawn from the pioneering
field operations of the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) in its 1949-1954 research on
disasters (see, Quarantelli 1987; 1988). However, also influential was the research focus on
organizations per se for which conventional survey methods during actual crisis times were not
appropriate or difficult. There were minor refinements and augmentations over the years. In the
main what we depict is the later rather than the earlier versions of the procedures. Also what is
set forth, using a Russell Dynes characterization, is the “generic” version rather than all the
variants used in the different research projects DRC undertook. Finally, while we generally
depict what was intended to happen, we do note difficulties in achieving what was wanted or
planned with relation to specific matters and near the end of the chapter indicate some
problematical aspects of the whole enterprise.
GENERAL BACKGROUND
The possibilities and problems inherent in the kind of field work DRC undertook requires
understanding the general context within which it operated. This is not the place for a history of
the Center, but we note selective aspects since they affected the research planned and done.
From its inception, DRC was administratively nested in and informally part of a department
of sociology. However, the Center for most of its existence never had any funding from any
university source, thus making organizational control by other entities over its operations mostly
nominal. Except in very recent years, funds for all DRC activities were from the research grants
and contracts it obtained on its own. In the early years most funding came from the predecessors
of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) (e.g., the Office of Civil Defense–OCD), but that was increasingly replaced in later years by grants from the National Science
Foundation (NSF). While the support from OCD came through contracts, the initial relationship
that quickly evolved soon allowed DRC, within very broad limits, to do what research it wanted
in whatever way it thought best. Overall, DRC had more freedom in its operations than many
centers or institutes typically have, a professional advantage the Center used in the studies it
independently launched, as illustrated later.
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As an organization, DRC was never systematically planned or even formally created. The
Center was never a formal part of the Ohio State University. In many sense, it was an emergent
group with decisions on group structures and functions forced by situational contingencies.
Thus, its evolution had neither the advantages nor the disadvantages of a structured path. But
implicitly at least, DRC from the start was thought of by its founders as primarily a social
science research entity. It was never visualized as having teaching functions, providing any
formal training or having a consultative role; and as a group no such activities were ever
undertaken. Nevertheless, the sharp focus on research did lead to several auxiliary activities that
eventually were important in the Center’s history, namely the systematic creation of an archive of
its own field data, the establishment of the largest specialized library in the world on the human
and social aspects of disasters, as well as the development of its own publication program.
From a research perspective, DRC from its inception looked at all kinds of “disasters.” The
natural versus technological disaster distinction was ignored in its work (contrary to some
statements others have made about its focus), although sometimes particular projects because of
their funding source focused on a particular kind of disaster rather than another (e.g., the DRC
pioneering study of chemical disasters in the early 1980s, see Quarantelli 1984). As an
indication of its generic approach, the first ten events studied were a hurricane in Texas, the
overflow of a dam in Italy, the Coliseum explosion in Indianapolis, a nuclear plant accident near
San Antonio, a nursing home fire in northern Ohio, the dam break in Baldwin Hills California, a
plant explosion in Massachusetts, a flood in Cincinnati, and the Alaskan earthquake, and also a
student civil disturbance in Columbus, Ohio. Also, as just said, DRC sometime studied civil
disturbance and riot occasions (Warheit and Quarantelli 1969), mostly for comparative purposes
since it was assumed such conflict type episodes are somewhat substantively different from
natural and technological disaster occasions. While DRC found it could use the generic field
research methodology in all its work, conflict situations did require adjustments that however are
not discussed in this chapter.
The quantity of field work done also partly dictated the need for a standardized field
procedure. From 1963 to 1984 while DRC was at Ohio State University, it undertook 457
different field studies (in about a third of the cases this involved more than one actual trip to the
site). In several years, field trips were quite numerous, there being 55 different field studies in
1969 alone, 51 in 1972, 50 in 1982, and 46 in 1979. Only in two years did the number of field
studies drop below the double digit. As such, it was not rare to have two different teams in the
field simultaneously, and occasionally three teams were concurrently in the field.
The great majority of work was done in the United States. However, 18 field studies were
done between 1963-1973 in 11 foreign countries (five times in Canada, three times in Italy,
twice in Japan, and once each in Mexico, Chile, Greece, El Salvador, Australia, Iran, Curacao
and Yugoslavia). These foreign studies mostly ended with the emergence of native disaster
researchers in many places.
The actual field work especially after the first few years, was done by graduate students.
Depending on the research funding available, these at any given time numbered between four
and fifteen (the total DRC personnel once peaked at 59 staff members, but two dozen was the
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more typical work force). These students appointed as research assistants (GRAs) were mostly
drawn from sociology but in later years were also selected from other areas (e.g., political
science, journalism, anthropology, nursing, etc.). In principle they were employed only on a half
time basis (20 hours per week), but the informal understanding was that there was no limit in
doing field work. While major efforts were made not to disrupt class attendance and
examination taking, it was nonetheless an unambiguous stipulation for employment that all
GRAs had to be available for field work on any day at any time of the year, university holidays
and vacations to the contrary. In part this was related to the fact that DRC never employed
GRAs for a specialized work role (e.g., field interviewer, coder, or any other specific task).
Instead, it was an explicit condition of employment that all would work on all research aspects
ranging from the designing of the field work through data gathering to data processing to data
analysis and initial report writing. It was also assumed that GRAs would work on all research
projects in being during their employment (usually two or three, in rare instances, more).
Most Center funding was for specific research topics. As an example, DRC once had a fiveyear contract with OCD to study the major community organizations involved in disasters; under
this, particular studies were done of local emergency management agencies, police and fire
departments, hospitals and related entities, the public utilities, and the Red Cross. DRC also
specifically studied the delivery of mental health services under a grant from the National
Institute of Mental Health, and the delivery of emergency medical services through a Health
Resources Administration grant.
In addition, DRC at times was funded to study very general topics such as “community
coordination” or “organizational functioning,” labels deliberately vague but which allowed the
Center to venture into different research areas. For instance, DRC studied the military, religious
groups and –in the early days of its existence–the mass media, which otherwise probably could
not have been attempted at that time. This work did at times lead to more specific studies, for
example, a later NSF grant to study news reporting by community mass communication
systems. In addition, DRC taking advantage of the professional freedom mentioned earlier, did
studies not directly funded by anyone. These were “piggybacked” in various ways on funded
projects. Among such research were studies on the handling of the dead in mass casualty
situations, disaster induced long run organizational changes, the characteristics of disaster
subcultures, state level disaster planning, rumor control centers, and non-riot looting behavior,
etc.
DRC chose all the topics it studied. It rejected suggestions by funders that were not of
professional interest to the directors or that made little sense on the basis of earlier research (e.g.,
a proposal by a federal agency to fund the Center for a field study of the “looting” in Hurricane
Camille). Important is that a conscious effort was made to keep moving on continually to new
topics for study. In only a few cases did the Center replicate or build upon previously studied
topics (the major exception was a multi year restudy for FEMA of an earlier five-year OCD
study of emergency organizations). There was a logic to this pioneering. For years DRC was
the only research entity of its kind anywhere; given that, studying new topics was seen as the
best way to call attention to the importance and significance of social science studies of disasters.
At another level, a pioneering effort is more of an intellectual challenge, requires innovation in
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the field design, and is certain to generate unexpected findings. In short, we found it both “fun”
and “interesting” to pioneer, and accordingly did so.
DRC research in one sense operated at two levels. At one level, the intent was to understand
disaster phenomena per se such as the Conditions that generated disaster problems, the
Characteristics of organized disaster behavior, the later Consequences of that, and the Careers of
disasters (this jokingly came to be known as the C model). At another level, the goal was to
further sociological understanding of emergent groups and organizational behavior. Put another
way, the DRC sociologists true to their disciplinary background, assumed that the better
sociology they did, the better would be the research on disasters. Therefore a conscious effort
was made in analysis and report writing to interplay the descriptive disaster data and sociological
ideas, but a balance was not always achieved. While the Center was successful in explicitly
resisting the development of a separate field of “disasterology,” and had some success in
developing the sociology of disasters, the latter was not as much as might have been ideal.
Yet the Center never operated with one explicit theoretical orientation. There was in fact a
conscious effort to avoid the development of a Center orthodoxy or “party line.” Nevertheless,
certain views about social phenomena were implicitly used more than others. A sociological
orientation was always present, and not a geographical one as in the early hazards studies by
others. In addition, the implicit social psychology framework used was symbolic interactionism.
Similarly, ideas from the classical University of Chicago view of collective behavior permeated
the approach to emergent behaviors and groups (for the historical background of these two
orientations see, Quarantelli 1987, 1994). Organizations, on the other hand, tended to be viewed,
but not always consistently, in an amorphous structural functional framework. Our point is that
the field operations and research procedures were influenced by the indicated theoretical
preference so while a rigid theoretical orthodoxy was avoided, DRC did lean implicitly in certain
directions rather than others.
As loose as the theoretical preferences were, the DRC methodology was even more eclectic
and catholic. There was to be sure a preference for methods that allowed induction rather than
requiring deduction and which allowed qualitative rather than demanded quantitative analyses.
In a general sense, what DRC by trial and error evolved, was similar to the “grounded theory
methodology” which was being created roughly at the same time by other sociologists with no
direct connection to the disaster area (see Glaser and Strauss 1967). However, the Center did not
explicitly or consciously borrow from the formal literature on grounded theory. In fact, it was
quite a while before DRC consciously recognized that it too had gone down the same
methodological path developed by grounded theory scholars.
PRIOR OR PREFIELD PROCEDURES
While there was “trial and error” in training the first cohort of GRAs, from the first the
prefield training was deemed very crucial for their ability to do well at disaster sites. So much
time and effort were spent on training. Among procedures usually followed were providing all
new GRAs: (1) a general introduction to the history of disaster research and the Center, (2) the
procedures, promises and problems in qualitative field research, and (3) a detailed introduction
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to the specific research project(s) in which they were to be involved. Indicative of the coverage
of this training for new GRAs are the topics of the 30 sessions listed in the outline for 1987, and
given by the DRC directors.
OUTLINE FOR 1987
I. BACKGOUND ON THE DISASTER AREA AND DRC. 1) Nature of disasters and disaster
preparedness and response in the U.S.; 2) History of disaster research in general in the social and
behavioral sciences; 3) Overall view of substantive disasters findings in general; 4) History and
activities of DRC; 5) Past DRC work and resources; and 6) DRC operations including logistical
issues. II. DRC FIELD WORK. 7) General orientation and policies (including ethical issues); 8)
Preparations and entry; 9) Interviewing problems and procedures; 10) Observing
problems and procedures; 11) Documenting problems and procedures; 12) Processing of
field data; and 13) Report writing.
III. THE FEMA STUDY. 14) FEMA as an organization and its interests; 15) Earlier related DRC
work; 16) Last’s year’s work; 17) Projected field work for the coming year; 18) The
research designed, new issues and questions that need consideration; 19) Specifics of the
research design; and 20) Planning and actually doing the upcoming field work.
IV. THE NSF MASS MEDIA STUDY. 21)NSF as an organization and its interests;
22) Earlier related DRC work; 23) Projected field work for this the coming year; 24) The
research design: issues and questions that need consideration; 25) Specifics of the research
design; and 26) Planning and actually doing the specific field work.
V. THE NSF MEXICO CITY EARTHQUAKE STUDY. 27) The study design used;
28) The survey work undertaken; 29) The organizational data obtained; and 30) Current status of
the work and what needs to be done to finish the study.
After the training sessions, new GRAs typically conducted practice field interviews with
officials in local emergency related groups (defined for them as studies DRC was doing of
preparedness planning). The tape interviews were then listened to by veteran DRC researchers,
with the positive and negative aspects of what had been done individually discussed with each
new GRA.
Even more important, at the start of any research project all GRAs were given copies of the
funded research proposal. After being told to read the proposal carefully, a series of meetings
were held, the first of which started with roughly the following statement: ” This formal
proposal gives you a vague idea …
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