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Earthquake preparedness in higher education: institutional resilience, risk perception, and psychosocial mechanisms
Mihaela Luminiţa Sandu1, Mariana Floricica Călin1
1Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ovidius University, Constanţa, Romania.
Introduction:
Seismic hazards generate psychosocial and organizational consequences, while effective preparedness depends on the translation of institutional resources, risk perception, and resilience mechanisms into functional procedural knowledge.
Objectives And Hypotheses:
This study tested an integrative model of earthquake preparedness among academic staff, examining institution-related perceptions, seismic risk perception, cognitive resilience, psychological resilience, adaptive resilience, preparedness engagement, and knowledge of intervention procedures. Hypotheses addressed direct associations, mediation, moderated mediation, and serial mediation.
Methodology:
The sample included 235 academic staff members employed in higher education institutions. Data were collected through an online multidimensional questionnaire assessing institutional, cognitive, psychological, and adaptive resilience, risk perception, preparedness engagement, and procedural knowledge. Exploratory factor analysis, internal consistency coefficients, inter-construct correlations, and multicollinearity diagnostics were used to examine the instrument's psychometric properties and the empirical overlap among the resilience dimensions. Statistical analyses included linear regression, mediation, moderated mediation, and serial mediation using the PROCESS macro for SPSS, with 5,000 bootstrap resamples.
Results:
Institutional resilience was significantly associated with engagement in preparedness activities. Cognitive resilience statistically explained the association between seismic risk perception and procedural knowledge, indicating that perceived risk becomes more functionally relevant when supported by cognitive processing capacities. Psychological resilience moderated this mechanism, showing that the indirect association varied according to emotional regulation capacity. Serial mediation did not support a fully sequential cognitive-adaptive pathway; instead, adaptive resilience accounted for a significant indirect association between institutional functioning and procedural knowledge.
Conclusions:
Earthquake preparedness in higher education emerges as an integrative psychosocial and organizational process shaped by institutional mechanisms and individual cognitive, psychological, and adaptive resources. The findings support evidence-based preparedness programs that strengthen institutional communication, cognitive processing of risk information, psychological resilience, and adaptive capacities for emergency response.
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