Waters, J; Neale, R; Hutson, S and Mears, K (2004) Personal safety on university campuses: Defining personal safety using the delphi method. In: Khosrowshahi, F (ed.) Proceedings of 20th Annual ARCOM Conference, 1-3 September 2004, Edinburgh, UK.
Abstract
Personal safety is an issue of increasing importance in the management of built environment facilities. This paper discusses research being undertaken by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust Research Institute (SLTRI) at the University of Glamorgan that focuses upon personal safety on university campuses. The aim is to improve the facilities and their management so that all its users are and feel secure. A review of current literature revealed that no rigorous, academically useful definition of 'personal safety' exists. It was therefore fundamental to define 'personal safety' in order to identify the principal focus of the campus study, and to delineate the scope of the project. The resulting definition of personal safety would serve as a basis for this research, and also for others within the academic and practice communities. The definition was formulated by means of a "Delphi Study," a well-established social science research method that seeks the exchange of expert ideas and views about a given issue through a structured communication process - in this case through a series of emailed questionnaires. The responses were anonymously fed back to the expert group for evaluation and refinement until a consensus was reached and an accepted definition of personal safety was attained. The definition will be utilised in the study of campus users' perceptions of personal safety on the university campus. Using virtual reality technology, a standardised virtual representation of the campus facilities will be used as the stimuli in a range of focus groups. This subjective approach utilises the perceptions of various users to the environmental setting and will offer potentially rich insights into personal safety issues in relation to the design and management of campus facilities. A pilot study has been completed that explored the impact of facilities maintenance and management on personal safety concerns.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | crime; fear; personal safety; risk; university campuses |
| Index terms: | social science, built environment, questionnaire, Delphi method, focus group, research institute, safety issue, virtual reality technology |
| Subjects: | research organizations, data collection methods, virtual reality, theoretical framing, financial risk, infrastructure and transport systems |
| Topics: | Cost Management, Research Practice, Urban Studies, Digital Applications |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here