Experiment procedure

Subject selection. In each city, subject firefighters arrived at the test site at 8:00AM on the testing day. Firefighters were randomly assigned to the ALIVE or Classroom conditions (these were in different classrooms, on different floors of the building or in different buildings). When the subjects gathered in their appropriate room, they were given an explanation of the study and provided with a consent form to sign. All subjects were assured that their choice to participate or not, and their scores on any and all scales, would remain confidential and not be shared with their fire department, and that declining to participate would in no way negatively affect them.

After all consent forms were signed and collected, the training session for the first module began:

✓ First, subjects were asked to complete the pre-test questionnaires which consisted of Knowledge Test 1 (pre-test) and the Self-Rating of Knowledge Test.




✓ Second, they began the training session (in the Classroom the instructor began his/her class; in ALIVE, the subjects were instructed how to use the system, and began the first ALIVE module).




✓ After training, subjects were asked to take the Knowledge Test 2 (post-test), retake the Self-Rating of Knowledge Test, and respond to the Course Evaluation).

After a brief break, subjects began Module 2 using the same procedure. After Module 2 was completed, all subjects were given a lunch break (food was provided for all subjects), following which subjects completed Module 3.

At the beginning of the day subjects were told that they would be contacted in two weeks and asked to completed follow-up forms. After these were completed they would be mailed their payments, as promised, for their participation. They were reminded of this information again at the end of the day.

All subjects were re-contacted in two weeks and asked to complete the Knowledge Test 2 for each module again. Subjects who did not comply were re-contacted at intervals to maximize return rate.