Collaboration Exercises: What Do They Contribute?

This article aims to study whether exercises contribute to learning that can be useful in actual emergency work. It reports the findings of a study about professional emergency personnel's perceptions of the impact of collaboration exercises. Surveys were distributed and collected from emergency personnel in conjunction with three collaboration exercises that took place in S weden in spring 2012. The survey included personnel holding different positions within the police department, fire department and ambulance services. Among them were also operational personnel such as officers. A total of 94 professional emergency personnel agreed to participate by answering the survey. The response rate was 95%. The study shows that collaborative elements in exercises contribute to perceived learning ( R 2  = 0:53), and that learning, in turn, has a perceived beneficial effect on actual emergency work ( R 2  = 0:26). The perceived results of collaboration, learning and their impact on actual emergency work, however, are moderate. The exercises were characterised by long waiting times and gave few opportunities to practise different strategies. Only a few respondents felt that they learned something about the collaborating organisations' ways of communicating and prioritising. Many also thought that the exercises were more useful for command officers than for operational personnel. Thus, the study shows that by strengthening the collaborative elements of the exercises, the perception of the participants' actual emergency work can be developed.