Competency Model Construction and Evaluation of Fire Protection Facility Operators From the Perspective of Intelligent Firefighting

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-4851508/v1

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Competency Model Construction and Evaluation of Fire Protection Facility Operators From the Perspective of Intelligent Firefighting

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4851508/v1

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The ability and quality of Fire protection facility operator directly determine whether the Fire protection facility control room can operate normally, whether the fire emergency disposal of buildings and structures is effective, and whether the fire safety management can be reliably guaranteed. In order to scientifically evaluate the abilities and qualities of fire protection facility operators, based on the competency theory, the competency model of fire protection facility operators is constructed from five dimensions: professional knowledge and skills, communication and cooperation ability, learning and adaptation ability, physical and mental quality and personality traits, and career development motivation. On this basis, the principal component analysis method is used to quantitatively evaluate the competency of fire protection facility operators.The results show that the overall competence of fire protection facility operators in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Chongqing is insufficient. It is mainly manifested in the lack of spirit to bear hardships and stand hard work, weak learning ability, generally low vocational qualification level and education level, less vocational training hours and lack of long-term personal career planning.

Earth and environmental sciences/Natural hazards

Physical sciences/Engineering

fire control room

Fire protection facility operator

competency model

The fire control room refers to a specialized place equipped with automatic fire alarm control equipment and linkage control equipment, with the purpose to receive, display, and process fire alarm signals and control related fire protection facilities ^1-2. It is used to monitor the working status of fire control equipment daily and around the clock to ensure its normal operation. Once a fire occurs, it is also the control center of fire protection facility and the emergency command center for fire extinguishing and rescue³. As the central core of building fire safety management, the fire control room is the first firewall for fire safety and plays a vital role. In this regard, the fire protection department requires that the fire control room shall implement a 24-hour duty system, with no less than 2 people per shift holding professional qualification certificates for fire protection facility operators. The national occupational skills standard Fire protection facility Operator(occupation code: 4-07-05-04, hereinafter referred to as the Standard)⁴ jointly formulated by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the Ministry of Emergency Management has been implemented since January 1, 2020. Two career directions have been established in the new Standard: "Fire Facility Monitoring And Operation" and "Fire Facility Inspection, Repair and Maintenance". The former are for people who are engaged in the monitoring, operation, daily maintenance and technical management and training of fire protection facilities and it is divided into four occupational levels from the lowest to the highest: junior (Level 5) to technician (Level 2). The latter are for people who are engaged in the operation, maintenance, repair, testing and technical management and training of fire protection facilities, and the two directions are not common and incompatible. According to the new Standard, only the personnel who have obtained the fire control facility operator qualification (fire control facility monitoring operation direction) can work in the fire control room, so in this research, the fire control room duty personnel are called fire control room fire protection facility operators, hereinafter referred to as fire protection facility operators.

As the "operator" and "helmsman" of the fire control room, the ability and quality of the fire protection facility operator directly determines whether the fire control room can be operated normally, whether the building fire emergency response is efficient and appropriate, and whether fire safety management can be reliably guaranteed. It can be seen from previous cases that it is not uncommon for fire control facility operators to "lose control in the early stage, make mistakes in the middle stage and fail in the late stage" ^5-6due to operational errors, improper emergency handling and dereliction of duty. On May 9, 2021, a fire broke out in a restaurant on the ground floor of a high-rise public building in Yangpu Economic Development Zone, Hainan Province. The accident investigation found that: the fire control room personnel on duty did not have a certificate and did not understand basic operating skills. The fire alarm linkage control equipment could not be started in the early stage of the fire, which caused delay in the fire protection . On December 31, 2021, a fire broke out on the second underground floor of Xinchangxing Market in Shahekou District, Dalian City, Liaoning Province, and eight people were killed and one firefighter was killed when a nearby polyurethane insulation material caught fire due to welding operations. The accident investigation found that in the early stages of the fire, the fire protection facility operators did not quickly arrive at the scene to extinguish the fire. The system was also not switched from manual to automatic in the first time, resulting in the automatic fire protection facilities not being started in time. Thus, the best opportunity to extinguish the initial fire was missed, causing a small fire to turn into a big disaster.

At present, with the continuous emergence of high-rise and super-high-rise buildings, as well as the increasing number of large-scale crowded places such as large commercial complexes, stadiums and theaters, fire and explosion accidents caused by leakage of hazardous chemicals occur from time to time. Fire accidents are characterized by multiple occurrences, diversity, variability and complexity. This places higher demands on the ability and quality of fire protection facility operators. Therefore, the new Standard has improved the educational requirements for fire protection facility operators from the original junior high school education or above to high school education or above. The Standard also has improved the requirements for the professional level of fire protection facility operators: To monitor and operate a fire control room equipped with linkage control equipment, the original requirement of holding a Fire protection facility operator certificate has been upgraded to holding an intermediate (level 4) or above certificate. Meanwhile, fire protection facility operators holding a junior (level 5) certificate can only monitor and operate regional automatic fire alarm systems and other fire protection facilities that do not have linkage control functions ⁴. At the same time, the occupational function is expanded into six modules in the new Standard": "Facility monitoring", "Facility operation", "Facility maintenance", "Facility repair", "Facility testing" and "Technical management and training", and each occupational direction evaluates the content of the corresponding occupational function module according to different levels. It can be seen that higher requirements have been put forward by the government administrative departments for the ability and quality of fire protection facility operators from the policy level, the application conditions, the professional qualification levels, assessment content, etc.

In this context, how to scientifically evaluate the ability and quality of fire protection facility operators and predict their performance is particularly important. Because competency theory and models have great advantages in identifying, evaluating, and predicting people's development potential and performance⁷. Therefore, based on competency theory, in this research, a competency model for fire protection facility operators is constructed, the quantitative evaluation and analysis on the competency of fire protection facility operators is carried out, and the strategies to improve competency are put forward, which has important practical guiding significance for the selection, training, assessment and ability and quality improvement of fire protection facility operators.

Ethics

The article research adopts the methods of literature review, questionnaire survey, and factor analysis, and does not involve any ethical issues. The questionnaire survey adheres to the principle of voluntariness, and the preface expresses that the survey subjects voluntarily participate in the survey behavior. All participants in the survey are working adults, and their informed consent and data confidentiality have been ensured. All investigations have been confirmed to have obtained informed consent from all subjects. Therefore, the Academic Committee of Chongqing Jiaotong University, responsible for ethical review, agrees to allow the author to conduct research on the competency model for fire facility operators.The experimental protocol was approved by Academic Committee of Chongqing Jiaotong University.

Research methodology

The article research adopts the methods of literature review, survey, and factor analysis, all methods are performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations， It does not involve any ethical issues. The literature research method mainly reviews and studies the competence of fire protection facility operators at home and abroad, and analyzes the competence characteristics of fire protection facility operators. The investigation method mainly involves conducting research on the fire rescue teams, fire supervision leaders, technical leaders of fire technology companies, project managers of property companies, and heads of property security departments in the four regions of Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Chongqing, to construct a conceptual model of competency for fire facility operators. Using factor analysis method, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis are conducted to optimize and test the competence model of fire protection facility operators. Finally, this model is used to evaluate the competence of fire protection facility operators in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Chongqing.

Overview of research on fire protection facility operators' abilities

The concept of competency was first proposed by McClelland in 1973. It mainly refers to personality traits that can distinguish excellent performers from ordinary performers, including personality traits^8-9 such as knowledge, skills, abilities, traits or motivations. Since then, competency theories and models have continued to develop and provide a new research perspective for the evaluation of personnel abilities and qualities.

Through literature review, it is found that currently, there is no research on the competency of fire protection facility operators at home and abroad. Only a small amount of literature has studied the competency of firefighters and fire commanders among firefighting personnel. Ph.D. thesis of Lynn M. Wojcik¹⁰: Pursuing professionalism: A preliminary research on fire officer competency evaluation. A three-stage qualitative research analysis method has been used in the development of a performance evaluation tool to evaluate fire officer performance. The results show that the overall work performance of fire officials reaches a good level. Guangli Li et al.¹¹ have constructed a firefighter competency model that includes five dimensions: Psychological quality, professional skills, self-development, professional quality and interpersonal cooperation, and 19 competency characteristics. Based on the competency theory, the combination of theoretical analysis and questionnaire methods, and application of measurement and statistical techniques, a public security fire commander competency model has been constructed by Yi Hou⁶ that contains six factors, such as cognitive and emotional will characteristics, knowledge and skill characteristics, organization and command ability, and troop leading ability⁶. Using behavioral event interviewing, psychometrics and statistics, Yexing Zheng and Shen Huang¹² have constructed a competency model¹² for grassroots fire commanders that includes six competency characteristics including subordinate orientation, concentration, responsibility and flexibility, and ranked the relative importance of the six competency characteristic items. A relational model of the influence of personality traits on the competency of airport fire commanders has been constructed by Xin Fu¹³. A competency model for fire rescue personnel has been constructed by Yisha Liu¹⁴ based on the iceberg theory, which includes three dimensions: knowledge and ability, values, traits and motivations, a total of 12 competency elements, and 40 competency indicators, and an empirical research has been carried out with SPSS 25 statistical software ¹⁴. To sum up, these literatures' research on the connotation and structure of firefighters and fire commanders' competencies has laid a good foundation for this study⁹. However, due to the particularity of fire protection facility operators, their work content and nature are essentially different from firefighters and fire commanders, so it is not suitable to directly apply these research results to the research of fire protection facility operators competency.

Moreover, the research on the occupational skills of fire protection facility operators, is closest to the research on the competency of fire protection facility operators, and is also a preliminary research on the key skill setting¹⁵ and professional skill improvement⁴ of fire protection facility operators, most of which are empirical summaries and suggestions. There is a lack of theoretical analysis and quantitative research on the structure and evaluation of fire facilities operator competency. Therefore, the competency model structure of fire protection facilities operator is constructed in this study to evaluate and analyze the competency of fire protection facilities operator quantitatively.

Analysis of competency characteristics of fire protection facility operators

In order to analyze the competency characteristic indicators of fire protection facility operators, a preliminary analysis of the competency characteristics of fire protection facility operators was firstly conducted through the work task analysis method, and then the new requirements for operator competency in the context of smart firefighting were further analyzed.

Analysis of work tasks of fire protection facility operators.The job task analysis method is a convenient and effective method to study individual competency characteristics¹⁶. Based on the work tasks of fire protection facility operators, the competency characteristics of fire protection facility operators was analyzed in this paper through their work responsibilities, work processes and situations.

After searching for Fire protection facility operator recruitment information, on-duty operation manuals, management systems and other information through search engines, the property company project managers, security department directors, and fire protection facility operators from 7 key fire safety units in Chongqing have been investigated through interviews or phone calls. Based on relevant literature, the main work tasks of fire protection facility operators were summarized in detail, see Table 1. Among them, emergency response is the key of its work. Based on the above task analysis results and competency related theories, the competency characteristics of fire protection facility operators were preliminarily analyzed from the aspects of knowledge, skills, abilities, traits, motivations, etc. The analysis results are shown in Table 1.

New requirements for operator competency in the context of smart fire protection.Smart fire protection is an important part of smart cities. With the acceleration of smart city construction, the requirements for fire protection intelligence are constantly increasing. Relevant national policies and guidance have also been released one after another. In 2017, the Work Points of the Fire Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security in 2017 was issued by the Fire Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, which required promoting the construction of smart fire protection and striving to improve the technological and informatization level of fire protection work¹⁷. In October 2017, the Guiding Opinions on Comprehensively Promoting the Construction of "Smart Firefighting" was issued by the Ministry of Public Security, requiring to accelerate the transformation and upgrading of fire service to intelligence.

It was put forward in the opinions the key construction tasks and work goals of smart fire protection¹⁷. On February 14, 2022, the National Emergency System Plan for the 14th Five-Year Plan (Guofa 2021 No. 36) was issued by the State Council. All localities were required to build a smart emergency management system for public security, fire protection, civil air defense, medical rescue, communications, environmental protection, government, and urban management services. In the context of intelligent fire protection, a series of changes such as the acceleration of the replacement of fire control equipment and the emergence of new fire alarm systems put forward new requirements for operator competence.

Fire control equipment such as fire alarm controllers and fire linkage controllers controlled by fire protection facility operators are being updated at an accelerating rate for there are many brands and models, and even imported products with full English interfaces. This requires fire protection facility operators to continuously learn new knowledge and master new skills through vocational training, self-research, etc., and higher requirements have been put forward regarding continuous learning ability, environmental adaptability, and vocational training. Traditional fire alarm systems can be divided into regional, centralized, and control center alarm systems ¹⁸.Thanks to high technologies such as big data, the Internet of Things, and cloud computing, new fire alarm system forms such as smart fire protection systems, urban fire protection Internet of Things remote monitoring systems, and multi-fire control room integrated network transformation have been gradually promoted and applied. The new system uses more new technologies and has a wider range of system control. At the same time, information transmission, communication and collaboration with the fire brigade, corps, and government administrative departments are more frequent. Higher requirements are put forward for fire protection facility operators in terms of their professional qualification level, years of experience in the profession, education level, vocational training hours, organizational and coordination abilities, and teamwork abilities.

In order to adapt to the development needs of smart fire protection, the career direction and professional qualification level of fire protection facility operators has been further refined in the new Standard, and the career development path of fire protection facility operators is gradually becoming clear. Fire protection facility operators can obtain higher-level certificates through examinations and assessments, so as to expand their career paths, and even seek for management positions. Of course, this also puts higher demands on their own career planning capabilities.

Construction of competency model for fire protection facility operators

Dimensional composition of fire protection facility operators' competency.Taking into account the completeness, accuracy, and systematicness of competency characteristic indicators⁸, combing with the preliminary analysis results of competency characteristics obtained through job task analysis method and the new competency requirements in the context of smart fire protection, a pre-survey questionnaire on competency characteristics was developed, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 5 fire rescue corps and detachment fire supervision directors, 3 technical directors of fire protection technology companies, 7 project managers of property companies, and 6 directors of property security departments located in 4 places in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Chongqing (face-to-face or telephone interview). At the same time, about 50 pre-survey questionnaires were distributed to the security department director and fire control room employees regarding 7 property management projects. Based on the results of semi-structured interviews and pre-surveys, the competency characteristics were supplemented, refined and adjusted. Finally, 21 competency characteristics indicators were summarized including five major dimensions: professional knowledge and skills, communication and collaboration ability, learning and adaptability, physical and mental quality and personality traits, and career development motivation. On this basis, a conceptual model of Fire protection facility operator competency was constructed, as shown in Figure 1.

(1)Professional knowledge and skills. Professional knowledge and skills refer to the professional knowledge and professional skills related to the work of fire protection facility operators. Fire protection facility operators are required to have certain professional knowledge, operational skills, fire protection capabilities and emergency response capabilities for effective monitoring, operation and emergency response of fire control equipment. There is a certain correlation between job professional knowledge, job operation skills and the Fire protection facility operators' professional qualification level, years of experience in the profession, education level, and vocational training hours. Therefore, in order to measure the professional knowledge and skills of fire protection facility operators, eight indicators are selected in this study, including job expertise, job operation skills, fire protection ability, response ability, professional qualification level, years of experience in the profession, education level and vocational training hours.

(2) Communication and collaboration skills. Communication and collaboration ability refers to the awareness and ability of fire protection facility operators to communicate, coordinate, and cooperate with colleagues in the fire control room work team, other colleagues and superior leaders in the project department, and staff of the fire protection competent department. Therefore, to measure the communication and collaboration ability of fire protection facility operators, three indicators are selected in this study: communication and coordination ability, teamwork ability, and language expression ability.

(3) Learning and adaptability. Learning and adaptability refers to the awareness and ability of fire protection facility operators to continuously learn new knowledge and new technologies, constantly reflect on and improve problems and difficulties encountered in their work, and to adapt to changing working conditions, scenes, places, etc. Therefore, in order to measure the learning and adaptability of fire protection facility operators, three indicators were selected in this study: learning ability, reflection and improvement ability, and environmental adaptability.

(4) Physical and mental quality and personality traits. Physical and mental quality is a combination of physical quality and psychological quality, which is a relatively stable trait that a person shows in different situations. Since personality traits refer to a person's relatively stable way of thinking and emotions, some common characteristics shown in different situations are their internal and external measurable traits. In the interview and questionnaire survey, many interviewees agreed that the sense of responsibility, ability to bear hardships and stand hard work and professional ethics are important competency characteristics of fire protection facility operators. Due to the particularity and importance of the fire control room itself, the fault tolerance rate of fire protection facility operators is extremely low, which requires them to have a strong sense of responsibility. At the same time, a high degree of concentration is also required. And long time on duty is no small test for physical and mental strength. Fire protection facility operators are required to withstand fatigue, loneliness, and concentration. Considering that physical quality, psychological quality, sense of responsibility, ability to bear hardships and stand hard work and professional ethics are relatively stable characteristics of individuals, they are combined into the fourth dimension and named as physical and mental quality and personality traits.

(5) Career development motivation.

Career planning refers to the combination of individuals and organizations, and based on the analysis of the subjective and objective conditions of an individual's career and an individual's own situation, the best career goal can be determined while corresponding arrangement is made according to the goal¹⁹. Professional role identity refers to an individual's behavior and attitude that are consistent with the job role, and he is willing to perform his duties according to the requirements of the job, which is demonstrated through his external behaviors⁷. Career planning and professional role identification both belong to career development motivations.

Fire protection facility operator competency model inspection

(1) Questionnaire design

Verify the structural dimensions of the constructed conceptual model of Fire protection facility operator competency, and design the final survey questionnaire. The questionnaire includes two parts: The first part is a basic personal information survey, mainly including gender, age, whether you are a veteran, and whether you were a firefighter; the second part is the fire protection facility operator competency measurement scale, with a total of 21 test items, corresponding to 21 competency characteristic indicators under the five major dimensions of fire protection facility operators' competency. The established competency dimensions and test items for fire protection facility operators in the fire control room are shown in Table 2 for details.

A 5-point Likert scale is used to score on a scale of 1 to 5 points. Among them, the professional qualification levels are calculated as 1-5 points respectively for fire protection facility operators (fire protection facility monitoring operations): level 5, level 4, level 3, level 2, level 3 or above and those who have obtained the fire protection engineer certificates; vocational training hours are calculated as 1-5 points based on the average training hours in the previous year from ≤ 5 hours, 5~10 hours, 10~30 hours, 30~60 hours, to > 60 hours; educational level is calculated as 1-5 points respectively based on junior high school, high school or technical secondary school, junior college, part-time undergraduate degree, or full-time undergraduate degree and above; years of experience in this profession are calculated as 1-5 points respectively based on ≤1 year, 1～3 years, 3～5 years, 5～8 years, and >8 years. The remaining test items are evaluated on a scale of 5 and scored as 1～5 points ⁹ according to "very inconsistent" to "very consistent" .

Table 2 Dimensions and test items of competency of fire protection facility operators in fire control room

Dimension	Measurement Item	Measurement Item Characteristic Description
Professional knowledge and skills (A)	Job professional knowledge A1	Combustion and fire, building fire protection, electrical fire protection, fire protection facilities, computer applications, initial fire treatment and other basic knowledge
	Job operation skills A2	Operation, monitoring, daily inspection, troubleshooting and abnormal handling of fire control equipment and fire communication equipment in the fire control room
	Fire fighting capability A3	Able to use fire extinguishers, fire hydrants and other fire protection equipment to extinguish small initial fires
	Adaptability A4	Ability to assess the situation and respond to emergencies
	Professional qualification level A5	Fire facilities operator (fire protection facility monitoring operation) qualification level
	Years of experience in this profession A6	Number of years working in fire control room
	Education level A7	Educational qualifications obtained so far
	Vocational training hours A8	Effective learning time for participating in training related to fire protection facility operation and fire safety management
Communication and collaboration ability (B)	Communication and coordination ability B1	Communicate and coordinate with colleagues, superiors and subordinates
	Teamwork ability B2	Awareness and ability to collaborate with other colleagues in the work team
	Language expression ability B3	Ability to express language verbally or in writing
Learning and adaptability (C)	Learning ability C1	Awareness and ability to learn new knowledge and new technologies
	Reflection and improvement ability C2	The ability to reflect on and improve problems and difficulties encountered at work
	Environmental adaptability C3	Adapt to changing working conditions, scenes, locations, new equipment, new systems, new knowledge, and new skills
Physical and mental quality and personality traits (D)	Physical fitness D1	Strength, speed, endurance, agility and other functional abilities demonstrated at work
	Psychological quality D2	An individual quality that is developed in real life over a long period of time and is displayed when encountering emergencies.
	Responsibility awareness D3	Loyalty and adherence to one's responsibilities and mission
	Ability to bear hardships and stand hard work D4	Able to be on duty for long periods of time and able to adapt to the intensity of physical and mental work at work
	Professional ethics level D5	Be dedicated to work, be honest and trustworthy, abide by the organizational disciplines of the unit, and abide by the rules and regulations of the fire control room⁸
Career development motivation (E)	Career planning E1	Determine their best career goals and make corresponding arrangements based on the goals¹⁹
Career development motivation (E)	Professional role identity E2	The individual's behavior and attitude are consistent with the job role, and is willing to perform his duties according to the job requirements.

A questionnaire survey was conducted on fire protection facility operators by combining an online questionnaire survey with on-site distribution of questionnaires.From February 2022 to November 2023, 550 questionnaires were randomly distributed to fire protection facility operators in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Chongqing, and 432 questionnaires were recovered. Among them, 405 questionnaires are valid questionnaires, and the effective questionnaire recovery rate is 73.64%.

(2) Exploratory factor analysis

SPSSAU software was used to conduct exploratory factor analysis on 21 competency indicators. It is shown by the test results that: The KOM value is 0.728>0.7, and the significance level of Bartlett's sphericity test is less than 0.001, indicating that the sample data is relevant and suitable for factor analysis. Factor analysis has extracted a total of 5 characteristic root values, all of which are greater than 1 factor, and the cumulative variance explanation rate after rotation is 62.73%>60%⁹²⁰. Except for "environmental adaptability", the loading coefficients of other factors are all greater than 0.5, and the factors can reflect more than 60% of the information, indicating that the questionnaire has good validity. According to the meaning of each observed variable, the five factors extracted are named: Professional knowledge and skills (A), communication and collaboration ability (B), learning and adaptability (C), physical and mental quality and personality traits (D), career development motivation (E) ⁹.

The questionnaire reliability test shows that the Cronbach's α coefficients of the five dimensions are all greater than 0.6, and the overall value is 0.768, all exceeding 0.6, indicating that the reliability quality of the questionnaire data is acceptable. See Table 3 for details.

Table 3 Results of exploratory factor analysis

Factor number	Factor name	Element number	Components	Loading coefficient	Cronbach´s α value
A	Professional knowledge and skills	A1	Job professional knowledge	0.615	0.684
		A2	Job operation skills	0.566
		A3	Fire fighting ability	0.612
		A4	Adaptability	0.663
		A5	Vocational qualification level	0.648
		A6	Years of experience in this profession	0.520
		A7	Educational level	0.592
		A8	Vocational training hours	0.607
B	Communication and collaboration ability	B1	Communication and coordination ability	0.629	0.623
		B2	Teamwork ability	0.585
		B3	Language expression ability	0.580
C	Learning and adaptability	C1	Learning ability	0.641	0.675
		C2	Reflection and improvement ability	0.625
		C3	Environmental adaptability	0.483
D	Physical and mental quality and personality traits	D1	Physical quality	0.605	0.662
		D2	Psychological quality	0.636
		D3	Sense of responsibility	0.639
		D4	Ability to bear hardships and stand hard work	0.583
		D5	Professional ethics level	0.572
E	Career development motivation	E1	Career planning	0.643	0.660
E	Career development motivation	E2	Professional role identity	0.598	0.660

Table 4 Confirmatory factor analysis model fitting index

Common indicator	p	χ²/df	CFI	IFI	GFI	RMSEA	RMR	PGFI	SRMR
Judgment criteria	>0.05	<3	>0.9	>0.9	>0.9	<0.10	<0.05	>0.9	<0.1
Value	0.000	2.233	0.911	0.913	0.898	0.063	0.044	0.923	0.064

Table 5 Confirmatory factor analysis AVE and CR indicator results

Factor serial number	Factor name	Average variance extraction AVE value	Combined reliability CR value
A	Professional knowledge and skills	0.494	0.744
B	Communication and collaboration ability	0.411	0.633
C	Learning and adaptability	0.562	0.714
D	Physical and mental quality and personality traits	0.435	0.689
E	Career development motivation	0.438	0.695

(3) Confirmatory factor analysis

Based on the results of exploratory factor analysis, a second-order confirmatory factor analysis⁹ has been performed on the sample data. The model fitting index is shown in Table 4 in detail. The results show that the chi-square degree of freedom ratio (χ²/df), CFI, IFI, GFI and other indicator values meet the criteria. Based on comprehensive judgment, the model fits well with the actual data⁹. The combined reliability CR value and average variance extraction AVE value of the five factors are shown in Table 5 in detail. The CR values are all around 0.7, indicating that the questionnaire has high internal consistency and overall reliability. The AVE value does not meet the judgment criterion of 0.5, but it is close to 0.5. According to the suggestion of Bettencourt (2004), when the combined reliability is high, it is acceptable for the AVE value to be close to 0.5. To sum up, the questionnaire has high convergent validity, the data can be used for further analysis, and this second-order competency model can be accepted⁸⁹.

The weighted arithmetic average method was used to evaluate the competency indicators of fire protection facility operators. The scores for each indicator are shown in Table 6. The principal component analysis method in SPSSAU software was used to determine the weight of each indicator of the Fire protection facility operators' competency. The weight values are shown in Table 6. Based on the data in the table, the weighted average method was used to calculate the competency of each dimension and the total competency. See Table 7^8,9for details

Table 6 Scores and weights of each indicator for fire protection facility operators

Dimension	Composition indicators	Scores	Weights (%)	Dimension	Composition indicators	Scores	Weights (%)
Professional knowledge and skills (A)	Job professional knowledge A1	3.62	5.23	Learning and adaptability (C)	Learning ability C1	2.85	5.48
	Job operation skills A2	3.35	4.53		Reflection and improvement ability C2	3.60	2.91
	Fire fighting ability A3	4.49	4.57		Environmental adaptability C3	3.78	4.08
	Adaptability A4	4.00	4.75	Physical and mental quality and personality traits (D)	Physical quality D1	4.58	3.62
	Vocational qualification level A5	1.31	6.83		Psychological quality D2	4.31	4.17

	Years of experience in this profession A6	3.12	6.84		Responsibility awareness D3	4.44	3.13
	Educational level A7	2.36	5.66		Abilit to bear hardships and stand hard work D4	3.76	3.86
	Vocational training hours A8	1.90	3.53		Professional ethics level D5	4.56	3.77
Communication and collaboration ability (B)	Communication and coordination ability B1	4.08	4.82	Career development motivation (E)	Career planning E1	3.14	5.41
	Teamwork ability B2	4.43	5.84	Career development motivation (E)	Professional role identity E2	3.30	5.31
	Language expression ability B3	3.87	5.66

Table 7 Evaluation results of competency in each dimension and overall competency of fire protection facility operators

Professional knowledge and skills

Communication and collaboration ability

Learning and adaptability

Physical and mental quality and personality traits

Career development motivation

Overall competency

Scores

3.02

4.13

3.41

4.33

3.22

3.51

(1) The overall competency of fire protection facility operators in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Chongqing is 3.51 points, which is at a medium level and the overall competency is insufficient. Among them, the indicator of physical and mental quality and personality traits has the highest score of 4.33 points. The score of psychological quality, sense of responsibility and professional ethics is relatively higher. The main reason is that a large number of operators are veterans or were firefighters. They had received long-term physical training, participated in fire protection work or actual combat drills, and their physical and psychological qualities had been greatly improved. The score of ability to bear hardships and stand hard work is only 3.76, which is a low score. The reason is that some operators who have poor energy, endurance and concentration after being on duty for a long time often have difficulty sticking to their posts due to fatigue and lack of effort, resulting in low work efficiency. In this regard, when selecting operators, special attention should be paid to the examination of energy, endurance, and concentration. When training operators on the job, targeted training should be conducted through endurance, concentration games and other forms that are popular with employees. At the same time, we should vigorously promote the craftsman spirit and guide them to develop a professional spirit⁸of bearing hardships and standing hard work.

(2) The communication and collaboration ability dimension has a high score of 4.13 points. Among them, the score of teamwork ability and communication and coordination ability is relatively high. It shows that the operators have good teamwork and communication and coordination skills, and are willing and able to realize effective communication, division of labor, cooperation and unity together with colleagues and superiors. The score of verbal expression ability is lower, 3.87 points. In this regard, when selecting operators, whether their language expression is clear and coherent should be examined. At the same time, professional instructors should be invited to provide targeted training through on-site guidance, online training, etc.

(3) The score of learning and adaptability dimension is low, 3.41 points. The three indicators it contains all have low scores, among which learning ability is the lowest, only 2.85 points. In this regard, virtual reality technology (Virtual Reality, abbreviated as VR) can be used to develop a virtual simulation system that can simulate various working conditions and environments. Operators can improve their adaptability to the environment through VR experience. Firefighters can be encouraged to continuously improve their learning ability of new knowledge and skills through special guidance, regular training (combining on-site training with online training) and regular assessment, so as to constantly reflect on and improve their work and accumulate experience.

(4) The score of career development motivation dimension score is low, 3.22 points. Among them, the score of professional role identification is only 3.30 points, and the score of career planning is only 3.14 points. It can be seen that the career positioning of operators is not accurate enough, the career goal is not clear enough, there is a lack of long-term personal career planning and career promotion motivation, and the recognition and sense of belonging to the profession of fire protection facility operators are not strong. Therefore, the fire protection authorities need to formulate relevant policies, strengthen relevant publicity, and establish models of highly skilled talents for fire protection facility operations through organizing vocational skills competitions in the fire protection industry. Enterprises should focus on improving the welfare benefits of high-quality operators, gradually improve their working environment, strive to build their career promotion channels, and strengthen their career planning guidance. The combination of spiritual advocacy and material rewards can stimulate operators' internal motivation for career development and enhance their own sense of professional identity.

(5) The score of professional knowledge and skills is the lowest, 3.02 points. Among them, fire protection ability and adaptability scored higher, 4.49 points and 4.00 points respectively. The scores of job professional knowledge and job operation skills are low, 3.62 points and 3.35 points respectively, indicating that the operators' mastery of job professional knowledge and operation skills is at a medium level, with a considerable room for improvement. The scores of vocational qualification level, education level, and vocational training hours are all lower than 2 points, 1.31 points, 2.36 points, and 1.90 points respectively. It can be seen that operators generally have low levels of education and have few hours and times of vocational training. In this regard, ① From the level of the fire protection department and regarding the professional skills appraisal of fire protection facility operators, attention should be paid to the flexible application of practical professional knowledge and operational skills, so that the actual abilities of fire protection facility operators can be consistent with the qualification levels obtained. As a mandatory requirement and continuing education and training should be included as a prerequisite for holding this level of qualifications and reference for high-level qualifications, and their abilities can be further enhanced through training. Spiritual advocacy should be combined with material encouragement. Those who have obtained professional qualifications can apply for skills improvement subsidies. In daily supervision and inspection, the fire protection department needs to focus on checking whether the certificate level meets the requirements for employment, and on-site spot checking should be conducted concerning whether the operating skill level meets the needs of the position. Those who fail the on-site spot checking must take training and assessment again and can only continue to work after passing relevant assessments; ② In terms of the enterprise level, it is necessary to increase investment in professional training from the perspective of long-term development of the enterprise. Flexible training methods such as online training and VR experience should be adopted for fire protection facility operators to learn on their own in their spare time. On-the-job employees should be encouraged to improve their academic qualifications and obtain high-level certificates. The salary level of fire protection facility operators should be improved so as to retain existing operational experts, and continue to attract skilled talents; ③ In terms of colleges and vocational colleges, fire engineering, fire safety technology, safety prevention technology and other programs should be establisehd and the operation and monitoring of fire facilities should be included independently as a professional course into the teaching system. And publicize, encourage and guide school students to obtain the qulification of junior fire protection facility operators. Multiple fire facilities operator training models such as school-enterprise cooperation, order-based training, and modern apprenticeships⁹ should be established to export more skilled talents with college degrees or above to various enterprises.

Combining the preliminary analysis results of competency characteristics obtained through job task analysis method and the new competency requirements in the context of smart fire protection, the competency characteristics are supplemented, refined and adjusted through semi-structured interviews and pre-surveys, and 21 competency characteristic indicators covering 5 major dimensions are summarized. On this basis, the final survey questionnaires are issued, and the principal component analysis method is used to quantitatively evaluate the competency of fire protection facility operators. The results show that the overall competency of the fire protection facility operators in the four places of Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Chongqing is insufficient, which is mainly reflected in the lack of the ability to bear hardships and stand hard work, weak learning ability, low professional qualification level and education level, less professional training hours, and lack of long-term personal career planning. In this regard, targeted competency improvement strategies are put forward. The results of this research are expected to help the fire protection authorities and industry enterprises understand the current competency status of fire protection facility operators, and provide reference for the selection, training and assessment of fire protection facility operators.

Data availability

Due to the declaration of confidentiality for investigators prior to the investigation, and the fact that these data are used under the permission of this study, they cannot be publicly obtained. If researchers need to communicate, they can contact the author Can Chen（Email：[email protected]）.

Acknowledgments

We are thankful to the reviewers for meticulously going through the manuscript and for their great suggestions.Thank you to my organization and my doctoral supervisor.

Competing interests

No Competing Interests.

Author information

Can Chen, female, Chongqing China native, doctoral candidate, first-class registered fire engineer, mainly engaged in research such as emergency management, engineering technology and project management, Mingde Building, Chongqing Jiaotong University, No.66, Xuefu Road, Nan' an District, Chongqing, 400074. Email：[email protected].

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Competency Model Construction and Evaluation of Fire Protection Facility Operators From the Perspective of Intelligent Firefighting

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