Effects of Fire Safety Management on Students' Safety and Welfare in Tertiary Institutions: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach

This study examined the effect of fire safety management practices on students' safety and welfare in Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Yelwa Campus, Bauchi, Nigeria, A quantitative research design was employed, utilizing a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire administered to 335 students selected through systematic random sampling. The study employed Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) to test the hypothesized relationships between fire safety management practices and the two endogenous constructs: students' safety and students' welfare. The analysis revealed that fire safety management practices exert a strong, positive, and statistically significant effect on both students' safety (β = 0.809, t = 35.516, p < .001) and students' welfare (β = 0.745, t = 21.833, p < .001). The model explained 65.4% of the variance in students' safety (R² = 0.654) and 55.5% of the variance in students' welfare (R² = 0.555). Effect size analysis showed large practical significance for both relationships (f² = 1.888 for safety; f² = 1.248 for welfare). The predictive relevance (Q²) values of 0.229 and 0.225 confirmed the model's adequate predictive capacity. The findings demonstrate that proactive fire safety management is a fundamental predictor of student well-being. University administrators should prioritize comprehensive fire safety management systems, including regular risk assessments, equipment maintenance, awareness campaigns, and emergency evacuation planning, as these directly translate to enhanced student safety and welfare outcomes. This study contributes to the limited body of empirical research that simultaneously examines the causal relationships between fire safety management practices and both student safety and welfare constructs using advanced multivariate analytical techniques in the Nigerian tertiary education context.