Lessons learned the hard way: Incident Command System learning and training

Abstract

As of April 5th, 2013, there were 5,095,275 people who had taken the ICS-100 class as an independent study online from the FEMA Emergency Management Institute. Despite the widespread use of ICS, debates continue about whether it is an appropriate tool for emergency management. While much disagreement exists, critics and proponents generally agree that implementation of ICS is a cause for concern and may be reducing the system’s effectiveness. Though many factors could influence the implementation of the system, this thesis focuses on ICS training and learning. The theory of Situated Cognition suggests that ICS learners would learn ICS best by practicing the system in the cultural context where they would apply the system. Using the theory’s three learning pillars of Concepts, Authentic Activity and Culture, a conceptual framework is developed and an ethnographic study of three ICS related cultural contexts is conducted. Multimode methods are used for data collection (participant observations, interviews, and document analysis) and data analysis (deductive, directed coding, and inductive, open coding, and constant comparison). Findings maintained the core of the original conceptual framework, but other elements emerged as the data was analyzed. Based on these findings, it is suggested that a lack of cultural context may be a significant factor in the ICS learning process and consequently implementation of the system as a whole. Recommendations include training ICS in-house and tailoring ICS training programs to the organizations that will be applying the tool.