A SCALE FOR RATING FIRE-PREVENTION CONTACTORS

M. L. DOOLITTLE

SUMMARY

A scale is constructed to help fire-prevention

program administrators determine if an individual

contactor is effective at influencing people. The 24

items in the scale indicate the qualities that an

effective contactor should have.

Additional keywords: personal contact, prevention-effectiveness.

INTRODUCTION

Research and field experience have shown that

person-to-person contact is more effective than

impersonal media for influencing people’s opinions,

beliefs, and actions regarding forest fire (Bertrand

and Baird 1975). But efforts to influence others are

not likely to succeed unless the person making

the contacts is right for the job. How can a fireprevention program administrator determine if an

individual contactor is effective at influencing

others? What are the attributes of an effective

contactor? We tried to answer these questions

by asking a large number of experienced fireprevention people what attributes characterize

an effective personal contactor. The result was

the development of a scale for rating contactor

effectiveness.’

‘The technique used for constructing the scale was developed by

L. L. Thurstone and his associates (Thurstone and Chave 1929).

The clearest description of the technique is presented by

Edwards (1957), p. 83-98.

SCALE DEVELOPMENT

We started with over 100 attributes of effective

contactors, but after eliminating those that were

ambiguous, redundant, or clearly irrelevant, we

reduced the list to 34. Then we asked the original

submitters to rate the importance of each attribute.

The results of that inquiry allowed us to compute an

average value, on a scale from 0 to 11, for each of

the 34 items. We also determined how closely our

“judges” agreed on the importance of each one, and

we eliminated ten items on the basis of their

disagreement. The final version of the scale was

field tested with 100 contactor-employees of a state

forestry agency. The results were consistent with

other measures of effectiveness for these employees-namely fire occurrence trends and supervisor’s rating. The 24 items and the value of each

are shown below. Item values are in parentheses.

USING THE SCALE

To use the scale to rate a contactor, the rater

simply indicates with a checkmark those attributes

he thinks the contactor has and adds their values.

The rating sum can be divided by the total of all

values (233) to obtain a percent score. Although the

scale was constructed with the supervisor of contactor personnel in mind, anyone familiar with an

employee can rate him or her. In fact, an average

score from several ratings will be more reliable than

a single score.

Some of the items in the scale are “personality

characteristics” (such as dependability, moral charSouthern Forest Experiment Station/T-10210 U.S. Postal Services Bldg., 701 Loyola Avenue, New Orleans, La 70118

Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Servrng Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Eastern Oklahoma, Tennessee, Eastern Texas.
acter, good sense of humor) and are difficult to alter.

A contactor who lacks a number of these may never

be effective. Conversely, some of the qualities can

be learned, like knowledge about the community,

fire history, and basics about fire prevention. The

contactor who lacks learnable traits but has good

personal attributes can be made more effective at

influencing others by specialized training.

Fire Prevention Contactor Effectiveness Scale LITERATURE CITED

1 .

2 .

3 .

4 .

5 .

6 .

7 .

a .

9 .

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

Respect for the people being contacted (10.3)

Ability to communicate on the level of people

contacted (10.1)

Respect from the people contacted (10.0)

Good personal hygiene (10.0)

Ability to listen effectively (10.0)

Persistence in performing a task (10.0)

Dependability (10.0)

Tact in dealing with others (9.9)

Moral character (9.9)

Commitment to the agency and job (9.9)

Desire to perform a task effectively (9.8)

Personal desire for achievement (9.8)

Knowledge about the community (9.8)

Knowledge of fire history of area (9.8)

Knowledge in the basics of fire prevention (9.8)

16. Personal desire for self-improvement (9.7)

17. Appreciation for the beauty of the forest (9.7)

18. Positive self-image (9.7)

19. Knowledge in general forestry (9.6)

20. Environmental concern (Q.6)

21. Good sense of humor (9.6)

22. Active in community affairs (9.4)

23. Strong sense of responsibility (6.9)

24. Inquisitiveness (7.7)

Bertrand, Alvin L., and Andrew W. Baird.

1975. Incendiarism in southern forests: a decade

of sociological research. Miss. Agric. and For.

Exp. Stn. Bull. 838, 40 p.

Doolittle, M. L., and G. D. Welch.

1974. Fire prevention in the Deep South: personal

contact pays off. J. For. 72: 488-490.

Edwards, Allen L.

1957. Techniques of attitude scale construction.

256 p. Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc.,

New York.

Thurstone, L. L., and E. J. Chave.

1929. The measurement of attitude. 96 p. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

M. L. Doolittle is Research Forester, Forestry Sciences Laboratory, Soutllern Forest Experiment Station, Forest Service - USDA,

maintained at Starkville, Miss., in cooperation with Mississippi State University.

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*U.S. Government Printing Office: 1979 672-236