Risk perception and knowledge: The construction of the italian questionnaire to assess the effectiveness of the knowRISK project actions

Abstract

In this paper we describe the design of the Italian version of the KnowRISK (EU project Know your city, Reduce seISmic risK through non-structural elements) questionnaire. Purpose of the questionnaire is to evaluate if the actions of the KnowRisk project can promote in students and in the people involved, attitudes and behaviours to reduce seismic risk. In the first months of the KnowRisk project, a questionnaire was designed to assess the starting point (T0) on seismic risk Perception, Knowledge of risk and Practice (PKP) of students and public in general before the project actions. Practice was meant in terms of intention to act. The first versions of the KnowRISK questionnaire were built around four theme questions: Who are you?; Do you feel safe?; What do you risk? What would you do?. We also present a preliminary data analysis of the answers collected between March 29 2016 and May 12 2016 in three schools (one each) of the Lombardia (N = 127), Lazio (N = 24) and Liguria regions (N = 14) for a total of 165 students. From this experience, we derived the guidelines for the construction of a common questionnaire of the KnowRISK project: (a) to assess in different countries the effectiveness of a project it is preferred to have a common questionnaire; the questionnaire should consider both qualitative and quantitative aspects. In this regard it is helpful to use Likert scales and methods such as the semantic differential that consider both aspects and they allow quantitative scores which are amenable to sophisticated statistical data analysis; (c) there are three important dimensions to assess project effectiveness: perception; knowledge; and intention to act to reduce the risk.