DA NANG UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS

BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION DEPARTMENT



REPORT
Community development project in examining personal
perception about Covid-19 pandemic

LECTURER: TRAN THI HANG

GROUP: HEAVEN FANSTASY
CLASS: 46K02.1

Danang, 12/2021
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MEMBERS OF THE GROUP

1. Phan Thị Mỹ Dung
2. Trần Quốc Khánh
3. Mai Hoàng Kim
4. Đinh Tố Quyên
5. Trần Trịnh Minh Trí

CONTENT

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S
I) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:............................................................................................3
II) INTRODUCTION:..........................................................................................................4
III) METHODOLOGY:......................................................................................................5
1) Interview:................................................................................................................... 5
2) Data collection:..........................................................................................................6
3) Ethics approval and consent to participate:................................................................6
IV) THEORETICAL UNDERPINNING:...........................................................................7
V) FIELD RESEARCH:.......................................................................................................8
1) The process of the interview:.....................................................................................8
2) Community behavior analysis:..................................................................................8
3) Why did we choose the perception aspect for this project? And what actions can we
take in order to facilitate our perception about the pandemic?..........................................10
4) Several limitations of this research:.........................................................................11
VI) PROPOSED PROJECT:.............................................................................................12
VII) CONCLUSION:..........................................................................................................15
VIII) REFERENCES:.........................................................................................................16

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I) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The community development project in this report was performed at high expectation
from the majority of students. The purpose of this project is to enhance each individual’s
awareness with the role as the “shield” preventing the Coronavirus.

The study involved the development of interviewees’ perception survey,  distribution

of the survey to people involved in health care compliance, and an analysis of the responses.
Proposed project was developed on the basis of these data. The report was responsible for
the following 4 tasks:

1. Describing the methodology of the project based on the process of

interviewing, collecting and analyzing the information.
2. Describing relevant theory that lay the foundation for the project
3. Integrating the process of interview, community behavior analysis, the reasons
why we chose the perception aspect and what actions we can take in order to
facilitate our perception, several limitations of this research.
4. Identifying further thinking of this project.

 An interview was held between investigators and respondents.. All the information
we have interviewed has been collected and analyzed in a specific and clear way. The
strengths, weaknesses, causes, and consequences are analyzed in more detail through
interviews with individual students. It can be seen that the cognitive factor we selected is
appropriate because we want this study to explore each individual’s perception about how
they think the pandemic situation is, and about what actions they can take to fight with this
violent disease.

After the survey data were analyzed, the proposed projects in the future are clearly
stated by us, which is not only a solution but also a direction for the future regarding the
extremely complicated and difficult epidemic situation that is taking place. 

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II) INTRODUCTION

The COVID-19 pandemic is a current global issue caused by severe acute respiratory
syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Coronavirus disease, which is a lethal disease
which keeps on having adverse impacts on many
countries around the world, has become one of
the most critical health predicaments in human
history. COVID-19 outbreak has spread rapidly
across the world from January 2020 to this day.
With quick and drastic measures, Vietnam is one
of the few countries that has somewhat
succeeded in managing the outbreak. This result stems from a harmonious combination of
many factors, with each citizen’s perception being the key role. So what is perception?
Perception is the way people organize the massive amounts of information they receive into
patterns that give it meaning. People will use their perceptions of reality, not reality itself, to
decide how to behave. And with this project, we will have a better comp rehension of
people's outlook about this pandemic. Also, this would be the chance for us to learn more
about the awareness of the epidemic situation in the subconscious of every citizen, the
importance and way of thinking about thoroughly fighting the covid pandemic that is taking
place in today's society. Because this is the most mentioned issue today, the project has
attracted many respondents as well as many people who are interested in the catastrophe.
Let's explore together about people's perception of coronavirus disease. In order to view
such a process of how every citizen perceives the situation, our team decided to take the case
of Da Nang University of Economics’ students into consideration and analysis. We selected
those people to bring an insight into the perception aspect. This insight will explain why
people’s outlook about a situation is extremely crucial and may enormously affect them.
Consequently, there would be some measures to raise people’s awareness of the 5K rule,
quarantine, vaccination, …

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III) METHODOLOGY

1) Interview:

An e-survey was conducted among the investigators and interviewees. This survey
was held from 1/12/2021 to 10/12/2021, with the purpose of examining personal perception
about Covid-19 pandemic. From there, we can propose several solutions to improve and
raise everyone's awareness about the disease 

A list of interview questions was designed based on theories in each chapter of

Organizational Behavior. A questionnaire consisting of 8 different questions with 6 topics
surrounding the perception aspect, attitude, satisfaction, motivation, culture, decision making
theories. 

Interviews between investigators and interviewees were conducted online through

ZOOM software, lasting for 30 minutes. The investigator in turn asked the prepared
questions, depending on the context at that time, choosing the right questions, creating a
comfortable, non-constrictive atmosphere between two people, interacting with the
respondents so that they were willing to exchange useful information for research. 

With the primary information collected from the respondents, the investigators will
record and analyze the strengths and weaknesses, from which to find out the causes and
consequences of each person's awareness of the Covid19 pandemic. 

In the context of the complicated situation of social distancing, conducting online

interviews instead of face-to-face meetings has become an indispensable part of research.
This form of interview is becoming more and more popular because of its convenience,
significant cost and time savings as well as ensuring the prevention of the Covid19
epidemic. Online interviews reduce transportation costs, easily schedule interviews, speed
up the process to help gather more information.

On the other hand, besides the advantages that this method brings, online interviews
also have disadvantages such as: unstable connection errors, difficulty in fully exploiting
information from respondents, and vulnerability. interruption in information collection if
there is a problem, other objective problems such as noise from the outside….

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2) Data collection:
The study tool was designed based on currently available information about COVID-
19 according to the literature and available recommendations. Validity of constructs was
evaluated by a professional practitioner heavily involved in public health. The validity of the
chosen categories was reached by authors’ consensus and that of experts within the field of
public health. The questionnaire sections involved items that evaluate participants’ beliefs
and perception towards COVID-19. 

3) Ethics approval and consent to participate:

Ethical approval was obtained from our team - HEAVEN FANTASY team - at the Da
Nang University of Economics. Participants were informed about the aim of the study,
voluntary nature of participation, and their right to refuse or withdraw from the study at any
point, and the potential benefit of participation in the study. All of the aforementioned
information was included in a digitally written consent form that was attached with the
online questionnaire. Upon accepting the conditions and statements included in the form,
participants were redirected to the questionnaire. Thus, the consent form itself acted as a
barrier to survey completion if rejected by the participant. This ensures that the participants
who had completed the survey, had already read and accepted its associated consent form.

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IV) THEORETICAL UNDERPINNING

There are many factors that influence people’s perceptions. The factors are either in
the perceiver such as personality and experience; in the situation such as social setting and
time; or in the target such as sounds, size, or background. 

The relevant theory that lays the foundation for this community development project
is Attribution Theory. The Attribution Theory helps us to understand interviewees'
perceptions about the pandemic. Research has shown that their perceptions are based upon
the assumptions they make about it. The attribution theory says that when we observe
behavior we try to determine if it is internally or externally driven.  If it is internally driven it
is under the person’s control whereas external causes are not under the individual’s control.  
We can use three factors to help us decide if behavior is internally or externally controlled: 
distinctiveness, consensus, consistency. Distinctiveness shows different behaviors in
different situations.  Consensus looks at the response and compares it to others in the same
situation to see if it is consistent with the behaviors of others.  Consistency looks to see if the
response is the same over time.

There are some frequently used shortcuts we use when judging the pandemic.  People
will often utilize past experience, their attitudes, and their interests to interpret information
about it and reinforce their own biases.  Relying on these shortcuts can lead to misperceiving
the situation.

The halo effect is another common shortcut where generally favorable impressions
are drawn about an individual when a single characteristic is positive.  The opposite is true
when unfavorable impressions are drawn about an individual based on a single negative
characteristic; this is called the horn effect.

Contrast effects occur when we are making judgments about an individual and
comparing them to other individuals we have recently encountered and using the comparison
to draw conclusions.

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V) FIELD RESEARCH

1)    The process of the interview:

- Mission for each member of the team: 

 My Dung: Interviewing people, gathering data (from 1/12/2021 to 10/12/2021).
 Quoc Khanh: Interviewing people, presenting data on word (from 1/12/2021 to
10/12/2021).
 Hoang Kim: Interviewing people, presenting data on word (from 1/12/2021 to
10/12/2021).
 To Quyen: Interviewing people, analyzing data (from 1/12/2021 to 10/12/2021).
 Minh Tri: Interviewing people, writing report (from 1/12/2021 to 10/12/2021).
 The objective of our mission is to explore as much information about the respondents'
perception during this predicament as we can and to know if there is any impact from
their perception on their daily life basis and subconsciousness.
- Required resource and resource allocation for our preparation:
 Interviewing: Internet, Zoom app, 5 Recorders.
 Gathering data: Primary data.
 Analyzing data: Excel app, gathered data.
 Writing report: Word app, analysed data, references.
- The respondents: we selected 25 students from Da Nang University of Economics for
this research.

2) Community behavior analysis:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, most people had to cope with the restrictions of the
lockdown, leaving them to their fears, insecurity and isolation. On the other hand, due to the
unexpected ‘extra time’, there was room for new experiences and for personal reflections on
what is essential in life, to perceive nature and relations more consciously. Therefore, we
intended to analyze changes of perception among the students during the time of lockdown.
Flash interviews among students from Da Nang University of Economics have documented
the restrictions in daily life and loneliness as the main burdens during the crisis. Apart from
concerns of loneliness and feeling restricted, many use. d the ‘extra time’ of the lockdown to

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spend more time outdoors, to perceive nature more intensely, to spend more time with their
family—and generally to have more time for themselves. This ‘extra time’ could be used as
a chance to reflect on those things which may give meaning in life, to reflect on what is
essential in life, maybe also as a hint to change important aspects of life, to be more aware of
nature and of people in the neighborhood, and to deal more consciously with them. Further,
some persons during the Corona pandemic have experienced that these restricted times
allowed them to focus more on their own spiritual resources, and, thus, some have enjoyed
the ‘silence’, while others feared this ‘silence’ because they became aware of their loneliness
and insecurity

    This study is a cross-sectional research conducted on an online platform (Zoom

app). The questions we asked them consisted of 7 questions on their knowledge and
perceptions of COVID-19. Based on what they answered, we can have a conclusion on 4
aspects, including strengths, weaknesses, causes and consequences:

       Strengths: The majority of respondents are able to be aware of the pandemic.

They know how dangerous the situation is. They are willing to follow the 5K rules,
quarantine policies and full vaccination in order to prevent themselves and the whole society
from unpredictable movement and transformation of the coronavirus. All of the awareness
stems from keeping abreast of the pandemic news and they truly care about not only their
health but also the society’s well being. Several persons even propagandize those
information to their relatives and neighbors with an aim to raising their awareness about the
coronavirus catastrophe. There are 2 students participating in the volunteering activities
about Covid-19 prevention, which shows the good sign of how careful they are about the
pandemic.

       Weaknesses: A few students still overlook the risk of the pandemic situation.
They don’t have any caution of the contagion of coronavirus with irresponsible activities
such as going out without a mask on, gathering in crowds, not using hand sanitizers
properly, not keeping distance at least 1 meter, … Their irresponsibility comes from the lack
of keeping up with the pandemic news and information. Also, they underestimate the ability

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of catching the virus and the whole society’s well-being. There is 1 respondent being
positive with the coronavirus test due to their overlook and ignorance of the disease.

Causes: The main reason leading to respondents’ perception is their personality.

There are 2 types of people with different characteristics in this case. Firstly, people, with a
cautious mind, tend to have a positive perception about this pandemic situation. Secondly,
people with a reckless personality, will be more likely to have a negative perception about
the Covid-19 disease.

Consequences: Perception will consequently affect human behavior. Students

with positive perception will have such responsible activities with not only themselves but
also the whole society. On the other hand, respondents with negative perception will have
irresponsible acts.

3) Why did we choose the perception aspect for this project? And what actions can
we take in order to facilitate our perception about the pandemic?

We chose the perception aspect for this project because we want this study aimed to
explore each individual’s perception about how they think the pandemic situation is, about
what actions can they make to fight with this violent disease, and about how well can they
adapt into this new environment for work, study, communication, … through online
platforms. Besides, it is essential to create this community development project so that each
member of this society will have their awareness and caution increased. Awareness about the
5K rule, quarantine policies, vaccination, … And being highly cautious of the risk and
danger of the coronavirus spread.

There are enormous things that everyone can do to facilitate our perception about the
pandemic. Respondents, who are highly aware or unaware of the transmission route, need to
care about the importance of the recommended preventative measurements which include
face masks usage, social distancing, and commitment to proper hygiene practices, resulting
in more adherence to such vital measures and decreased dissemination of the virus. This
finding points out the importance of providing accurate and trustworthy information about
the novel virus by health care authorities, health care workers and other involved sectors
through the use of both official platforms and social media. The affected populations need to

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have an adequate level of COVID-19 related awareness, in order to meet the aforementioned
challenges and form realistic expectations regarding the disease’s future course. The health-
related and socioeconomic burden of the pandemic might prove to be disastrous, especially
if it is mishandled by the public and disregarded by concerned authorities. Since the entirety
of any population that is in contact with COVID is vulnerable to its consequences, this study
was conducted to evaluate the awareness, perceptions about the pandemic predicament.

4) Several limitations of this research:

The study’s methodology, despite being appropriate for response collection during an
active pandemic, may fall prey to a number of inherent biases. Online surveys are usually
engaging to younger populations which might exclude or underestimate the responses of
older participants due to their limited accessibility to technology. Moreover, the use of
online surveys, that are primarily disseminated through social media platforms, enabled us to
recruit a larger and more diverse sample of participants within a short period of time.
However, they may have resulted in a demographic selection bias, manifesting as an over-
representation of younger age groups, while under-representing older people and those with
limited internet or social media access. The close-ended nature of the study’s questionnaire
might have missed significant unavailable responses or failed to accommodate for the wide
ranges of perspectives and attitudes associated with pandemics. Finally, the cross-sectional
design of the study might hinder the robustness of the associations observed.

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VI) PROPOSED PROJECT

First, we want to acknowledge that the coronavirus pandemic has forced all of us to
try new ways to sustain our community institutions. It can be seen that this community
development project is an extremely potential and valuable project. It brings many benefits
not only to the students but also to everyone. First of all, in this project, there is a process of
actions. The location where our team carries out is at Danang University of Economics.
Students in this university gave us a bunch of potential information to do research. They
have diverse knowledge and are full of the creativity of youth to be able to develop this
project more potentially. 

This is a project that perhaps we have been dedicated to implementing with the
overall goal of elevating each individual’s perception and awareness. During the ongoing
covid pandemic, people need to be more aware of preventing the disease by always
following the Government's instructions when social distancing. All of the citizens will
strictly follow the policies given by the government about fighting with the Covid-19
pandemic. Wherever the people are, they stay there. The epidemic situation has transformed
a lot, people will be safer by staying at home. This project was carried out to learn, analyze
and evaluate the perception of each individual about this global pandemic. Awareness will
be extremely important to understand the difficulties and dangers that we are facing.
Therefore, the factor of raising awareness for each individual will determine the success in
disease prevention, and at the same time must also act from awareness.

The subjective and negligent mentality still exists in a part of the people who lack
awareness. They did not react, did not cooperate, did not strictly comply with the
recommendations of the government, deliberately violated, such as: making false statements
in medical declaration records, avoiding isolation, gathering in large numbers. Some people
still go out when it's not necessary, don't wear masks... this puts a lot of pressure on
epidemic management. With this project proposal, we hope people will raise their awareness
of epidemic prevention and control, limit going out so that the epidemic can be repelled
soon, and return to a new normal life for everyone. People with negative perception will
have a more objective view, will change their mind and have a positive perception and begin

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to have responsible activities not only for themselves but also for the surrounding
community.

After having quick interviews with students through online platforms. Most of the
students share the same opinion that they find this community development project
interesting and really helpful for some people who still don't know how to deal with this
difficult situation and lack of news and pandemic information. 

This project is carried out by our team with the enthusiasm to bring each individual as
well as the community more aware of the epidemic in Vietnam today. A small project but
with great meaning and value has made us feel happy for that. The success of the project is
something that we always expect a lot. To talk about the success of this project, it depends
on how many people really want to raise their awareness, how many people have a more
positive view, and how many people get rid of it, how many people want to return to their
daily lives, how many people want to meet their friends face to face without informing them
through a virtual screen, ... Some more concrete examples show that our project has had an
impact on the majority of students: they have a positive outlook and hope that people will
return to their daily lives. They gradually become more conscious such as regularly wearing
masks when going out, disinfecting regularly, keeping a distance when in contact, improving
their own health, making regular and special medical declarations to regularly scan personal
QR codes when going to public places, eateries, restaurants, commercial centers,... In
particular, we need to propagate and share official information from the Government, the
Ministry of Health for relatives and friends to fight the epidemic together. A lot of positive
and effective actions. If every citizen joins hands, and is determined, victory over the Covid-
19 pandemic is certain!

Although the project has achieved certain successes, there are still some potential
risks, a few persons still do not accept and adhere to the basic principles set forth by the
government, oppose, and do not cooperate with the force in charge of disease control.
Condemned, while the border guards work day and night to protect the border and prevent
people from entering illegally, there are individuals for the immediate benefit who are ready
to "give the way" to each group of people. illegally crossed the border into our country.

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Some students using social networks are ready to report fake news, shock, draw attention,
even make divisive statements, regardless of the consequences that negatively affect society.
Fighting the epidemic becomes more arduous and challenging. It can be said that the road to
success is very difficult because of the factors that block that success. They do not seem to
accept that perception. Therefore, it is necessary to have the most specific and deterrent
solutions so that every citizen must strictly comply. The Government has introduced many
policies to penalize individuals, groups and organizations that do not comply with the
decrees in disease prevention in Vietnam. There have been many acts that have been
sanctioned not only in terms of administrative fines but also imprisonment,... Besides raising
their own awareness and actions about the epidemic situation, the Government's propaganda,
launching and warning is an extremely important and urgent step. Not only to advise people
to protect their health but also to prevent the disease from spreading to the community. It can
be said that the Government of Vietnam has taken extremely right steps and policies: to
prevent and urgently isolate F0, F1 cases, to propagate to the people: "Fighting the epidemic
is like fighting the enemy" ,... Vietnam has done a good job of educating people about the
disease, the mechanism of infection and methods of self-protection against the risk of
infection. In addition, there are policies to support disadvantaged people, Loss of work
during the pandemic. No one can have a peaceful life for themselves if the community is not
yet safe. With a sense of responsibility, joint effort and consensus with the authorities to
fight the epidemic, we will create unity, create a solid "shield" to prevent the spread of the
disease, and soon return society to a normal state.

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VII) CONCLUSION

The Covid pandemic is a top concern in the hearts of every citizen nowadays. The
pandemic has brought about extremely serious damage in terms of economy, society,
economic growth and more importantly, the health of all people. Faced with a problem that
is increasingly threatening the lives of every citizen, it is urgent to raise our awareness.
Raising awareness is essential to maintain life balance and protect public health. The
pandemic has dealt a heavy blow to the economy and society and changed the lives of many
people. After a long anti-epidemic period, we are forced to live with the "new normal", we
are forced to adapt and accept the "living with these people", so self-awareness is put on
first. Our perception will determine the way of thinking, consciousness and behavior of each
person in viewing things. This project is designed to find out about each citizen's perception
of how to view the covid epidemic: "Will you happily accept, comply or be obstinate,
regardless of everything to follow your own preferences? Because it is a hot topic, the
project has attracted the attention of many people and collected a lot of interesting and
different information. In short, it refers to the awareness of each individual when looking at
the problem and offering a variety of actions and behaviors to adapt to the epidemic. First,
the perception of seeing things and how to accept things will provide the most optimal
measure, action and compliance. It is from the information gathered from many people who
have been living in the "new normal" situation that they are aggregated to come up with the
optimal solution along with the desire to change people's perceptions in their view of the
world, current Covid-19 pandemic. In summary, the level of awareness described through
the information collected from the interviewees is quite complete, but still lacks some
specific aspects such as the causes of infection, vaccination and reasonable treatment. This
project is also intended for that purpose, to bring us to change our perception and raise our
awareness to see things in a more positive way. Besides, perhaps we have to rearrange our
work, "design" our lives to calmly live with the pandemic, to prevent it from harming our
health, not affecting the economy and culture, does not let it harm human relationships, does
not interfere with education, and most importantly does not affect the normal physical and
mental development of future generations.

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VIII) REFERENCES

AN GIANG ONLINE. (n.d.). Retrieved from Nâng cao nhận thức nhân dân phòng, chống
dịch COVID-19: https://baoangiang.com.vn/nang-cao-nhan-thuc-nhan-dan-phong-
chong-dich-covid-19-a313795.html

BMC. (n.d.). Retrieved from Knowledge, attitudes and perceptions towards COVID-19
vaccinations: a cross-sectional community survey in Bangladesh:
https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-021-11880-9

BMC. (n.d.). Retrieved from Perceived changes of specific attitudes, perceptions and
behaviors during the Corona pandemic and their relation to wellbeing:
https://hqlo.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12955-020-01623-6

BỘ Y TẾ - CỔNG THÔNG TIN ĐIỆN TỬ. (n.d.). Retrieved from 8 nguyên tắc để thích ứng
an toàn với đại dịch COVID-19:
https://moh.gov.vn/tin-tong-hop/-/asset_publisher/k206Q9qkZOqn/content/8-nguyen-
tac-e-thich-ung-an-toan-voi-ai-dich-covid-19

PLOS ONE. (n.d.). Retrieved from Awareness and perception of COVID-19 among the
general population: A Middle Eastern survey:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0250461

PMC. (n.d.). Retrieved from Policy Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Vietnam:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7828055/

Robbins, S. P. (n.d.). Organizational Behavior.

THANH NIÊN. (n.d.). Retrieved from TP.Đà Nẵng: Xử phạt mạnh tay nhà hàng không quét
mã QR phòng dịch Covid-19 cho khách: https://thanhnien.vn/tp-da-nang-xu-phat-
manh-tay-nha-hang-khong-quet-ma-qr-phong-dich-covid-19-cho-khach-
post1406488.html

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