RAPID: Investigating the Impact of Hurricanes and School Responses on Students in Texas and North Carolina

RAPID：调查飓风和学校应对措施对德克萨斯州和北卡罗来纳州学生的影响

• 批准号: 1760584
• 负责人: Cassandra Davis
• 金额: $ 19.99万
• 依托单位: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-12-15 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1760584&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Investigating; Impact; Hurricanes; Responses

In the wake of a significant natural disaster, schoolchildren experience substantial disruption to their lives and psychological impacts at greater rates than adults do. However, studies of the effect of natural disasters on students' functioning in schools are rare and studies of the responses of schools and districts are even rarer. This Rapid Response Research (RAPID) project is a unique effort to collect data across diverse school districts with varied degrees of impacts from Hurricane Harvey in August 2017 and Hurricane Matthew in October 2016. The project will provide an understanding of the current strategies employed by schools for disaster recovery and their effectiveness as judged by school and district personnel. This study will also provide data that is critical to the pursuit of the larger study to understand the impact of hurricanes on the school functioning of students and the role of disaster recovery in mitigating that impact.The project will conduct interviews, focus groups, and surveys with personnel from schools, districts, and state agencies in a sample of 20 districts in Texas and North Carolina that were heavily impacted by the hurricanes. The research questions the proposed study will seek to address are: (1) What impacts did the storms have? (2) How did schools respond to support students? and (3) How successful were those responses? The researchers will conduct 90-100 interviews and 20 focus groups with personnel from schools, districts, and state agencies in Texas and North Carolina to collect data on the effects of the hurricanes and the types of relief efforts undertaken at the school and district level. The research team will use the Constant Comparative Method to categorize and compare qualitative data, to assign codes and to develop subsequent themes found in the data. Coded themes will be related to (1) impacts of the hurricanes on students and schools (e.g., physical destruction of the schools, homeless students, and psychological distress), (2) school responses and supports provided, and (3) the perceived success of the recovery efforts and support from federal, state, and local agencies. Researchers will use the codes to identify and compare themes across different levels of government and across states. Similarly, researchers will use codes indicating school demographics to identify themes at the school level. Additionally, the research team will use codes to identify and tally the use of various strategies across sites. In North Carolina, researchers will administer closed-ended surveys to school personnel in 10 districts to collect perceptions of the success of the recovery in mitigating effects on students one-year after Hurricane Matthew. Survey data will be combined with school and district level data on demographics, grade levels served, and community characteristics. Also, data from the qualitative analysis will be used to create categorical variables to group districts and individual schools within districts by the types of impacts on students and schools (e.g., physical destruction of the school) and the school response and supports provided to students (e.g., provision of counseling services). The research team will use z-tests of proportions, chi-squared tests, and multivariate regression models to descriptively compare the perceived impacts on students and perceived success of the recovery efforts across schools and districts with different demographics, community characteristics, grade spans, impacts, and response and support strategies. Researchers in Texas and North Carolina will discuss findings and use the combined results to generate scientific publications and policy reports that can inform future disaster planning and recovery.

在发生重大自然灾害之后，学童遭受了对他们的生活和心理影响的重大破坏，其速度比成年人更大。但是，很少了解自然灾害对学生在学校功能的影响，并且对学校和地区的反应的研究甚至更稀少。这项快速响应研究（快速）项目是一项独特的努力，旨在收集2017年8月Harvey飓风和2016年10月MATTHEW飓风的影响不同程度的各种学区的数据。该项目将对学校和学校人员所判断的灾难恢复及其有效性的当前策略提供理解。这项研究还将提供对追求更大的研究至关重要的数据，以了解飓风对学生的学校运作的影响以及灾难恢复在缓解这种影响中的作用。该项目将进行访谈，焦点小组，并与来自德克萨斯州和北卡罗莱纳州的20个地区的学校，地区和州机构的人员进行访谈，焦点小组以及对受飓风造成影响的20个地区的国家机构的调查。拟议研究将寻求解决的研究问题是：（1）暴风雨有什么影响？ （2）学校如何回应支持学生？ （3）这些回应有多成功？ 研究人员将对得克萨斯州和北卡罗来纳州的学校，地区和州机构的人员进行90-100次访谈和20个焦点小组，以收集有关飓风影响的数据以及在学校和地区一级进行的救济工作类型。研究团队将使用恒定的比较方法对定性数据进行分类和比较，以分配代码并开发数据中发现的后续主题。编码的主题将与（1）飓风对学生和学校的影响有关（例如，对学校，无家可归的学生和心理困扰的身体破坏），（2）提供的学校回应和支持，以及（3）（3）联邦，州和地方机构的恢复工作和支持的成功。研究人员将使用这些代码来识别和比较各个政府和各州的主题。同样，研究人员将使用指示学校人口统计数据的代码来识别学校一级的主题。此外，研究团队将使用代码来识别和调整跨站点的各种策略的使用。在北卡罗来纳州，研究人员将向10个地区的学校人员进行封闭式调查，以收集对马修飓风后一年来减轻对学生的缓解影响的恢复成功的看法。调查数据将与学校和地区级别的人口统计数据，所服务年级和社区特征相结合。此外，定性分析的数据将用于通过对学生和学校的影响（例如学校的身体破坏）的影响以及提供给学生提供的学校的反应和支持（例如提供咨询服务），从而为小组和各个学校的各个学校创建分类变量。研究团队将使用Z检验，卡方检验和多元回归模型，以描述性地比较对学生的感知影响，并认为在各个学校和具有不同人口统计学，社区特征，跨度跨越跨度，影响以及反应和反应和支持策略的学校和地区的恢复工作中取得了成功。德克萨斯州和北卡罗来纳州的研究人员将讨论发现，并利用综合结果来生成科学出版物和政策报告，这些报告可以为未来的灾难计划和恢复提供依据。