Traffic education for children with a tabletop model

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Abstract

An experiment was carried out to investigate 6-year olds ability to learn traffic safe behaviour by the use of a tabletop model. The main purpose of the training was to teach the children to look for safe spots to cross the road. Children from two schools in Norway (92 children all in all) were randomly divided into an experimental group and a control group. Only the experimental group received training by use of the tabletop model; the control group received no such training. Both groups were tested (before-and-after-test) on a predefined route in the road traffic environment close to their school in order to determine the solutions they chose when they had to walk from one place to another (cross a road). The study also tested whether geographical location (urban/semi-urban) had any influence on knowledge acquisition. Data analysis showed that the training was effective in the urban school, but not in the semi-urban setting.

Introduction

As active road-users, children are primarily injured or killed as pedestrians. Accident statistics demonstrate that the number of children injured or killed as pedestrians is particularly high for 5- and 6-year old children, and decreasing from the age of 7 years and so on (Glad & Midtland, 2000; Limbourg, 1994). The fact that children aged 7 years and older have higher exposure to traffic as pedestrians further demonstrate how vulnerable 5- and 6-year old children are as pedestrians.

Just as for pedestrians in general, crossing the road represents the most risky activity for child pedestrians. In Norway, approximately 3/4 of the pedestrian accidents involving children are of this type (Glad & Midtland, 2000). One explanation of the elevated accident risk 5- and 6-year olds have compared to older children, is that acts like crossing the road safely requires relatively complex cognitive skills for a 5- or 6-year old child. For instance, the selection of a safe place to cross the road involves gathering and processing information, to detect vehicles, to estimate their speed and to evaluate distance and time-gaps. In addition, approaching vehicles may be hidden behind objects. The child also needs to understand the meaning of signs, signals and road markings, as well as being able to resist distractions in order to move safely in the traffic environment.

The accident statistics clearly suggest that measures aimed at children at early school age should target the problems they have when crossing the road as pedestrians. However, to teach a 6-year old child the complex cognitive skills required for crossing the road safely might be difficult. Within the field of developmental psychology the established view has traditionally been that children’s cognitive development cannot be advanced, and that a significant change in cognitive abilities relevant for safe behaviour in traffic occurs around the age of 7 years (see e.g.Vinjé, 1981 for a review of relevant theories). As a consequence, Norwegian traffic training has relied upon teaching children a set of rules and procedures, e.g. “look left and then right before crossing the road”. One problem with this rule-based method may be that it is too rigid, preventing the child to understand the purpose of the rule. This may again cause a failure to adjust behaviour efficiently when encountering varied traffic situations. For instance, the child may think it is safe to look left and right before crossing the road in front of a parked car blocking the visibility of oncoming vehicles.

However, the notion that cognitive development cannot be advanced has been challenged over the last few decades (Donaldson, 1978; Flavell, 1992). Meadows (1993) claims that children both can be trained to achieve cognitive abilities normally gained at a later stage in life, and further, that children at one age can be as competent at this specific activity as an older, untrained child. One can easily assume that this also applies to traffic related skills. For instance, Vinjé and Groenefeld (1980) found that it was possible to enhance preschool children’s understanding of visibility from various locations near a parked car, i.e. to refrain from an egocentric way of thinking. However, this kind of training did not have any effect on actual crossing behaviour near a parked car.

Results from two studies conducted in Edinburgh, Scotland, have shown somewhat more promising results. In the first of these studies (Thomson et al., 1992) 5-year old children were trained in groups and assessed on three occasions after training. One group was trained using a tabletop model; the other group was trained in the real road environment. Both groups improved substantially in performance following training. No differences were found between the two groups. Although performance fell somewhat after a while, the trained subjects performed far better than their untrained peers in all subsequent tests following training.

In the other experiment (Ampofo-Boateng et al., 1993) the procedure from the above mentioned study was replicated, only this time with individual training rather than group training. Again, children who received training performed significantly better than children without training. Also in Norway traffic safe training in groups by use of a tabletop model has been tried with good results (Glad & Midtland, 2000). Model training proved to have a positive effect on traffic safe behaviour for a test group of 6-year-olds.

As mentioned, organised traffic safe training of children in Norway has emphasised rules of correct behaviour in traffic, mainly carried out with the aide of books, records and pictures. Within the field of environmental psychology, and indeed in developmental psychology, there exists a whole body of literature to suggest that perceptual similarity and representativeness is an important feature for young children in problem solving and way-finding tasks (Gentner & Toupin, 1986; Holyoak, Junn, & Billman, 1984). In other words, the closer the representation is to the real world, the more effective the teaching of traffic skills will be.

Thus it follows that a program for teaching children traffic safe behaviour will benefit from being conducted in situations as close as possible to a realistic traffic environment. For the training to be effective, it should in addition teach the children about potential threats in road traffic by letting them experience these situations to some degree. But to do so in real traffic can be difficult, or indeed hazardous. A strategy such as the tabletop model used in the Edinburgh studies (Ampofo-Boateng et al., 1993; Thomson et al., 1992) and the Norwegian study (Glad & Midtland, 2000) may function as a good compromise between the demand for recreating the real environment and the demand for exposing the children to the traffic situations of interest.

Some studies have showed that parents might be just as successful as teachers in carrying out traffic training for children (Rothengatter, 1984). To insure that all children reach a certain ability level, regardless of their parents’ motivation, implementing traffic education through the school system may be a more useful strategy. If this kind of traffic safety training is to be adopted in an ordinary school setting, it is vital that training is effective also when conducted by schoolteachers who are not road safety experts. Both the Edinburgh studies and the Norwegian study were, however, conducted with research personnel involved both in the teaching and the testing of the children. The main goal of the present study is to therefore to examine whether the positive results from tabletop model training could be replicated when schoolteachers instead of research personnel conduct the training.

Both the Edinburgh studies and the Norwegian study were conducted in typical urban settings. Little research has been done into the difference between urban and less-urban environments as influential factors on children’s cognitive and motor development. It might be assumed, however, that children having grown up in an urban environment are more exposed to road traffic and thus more adept at coping with a complex traffic situation than children in a less urban surrounding. A second goal of the study was therefore to investigate whether the effect of tabletop model training is different for children living in an urban compared to children living in a semi-urban environment.

Section snippets

Method

In this study an experiment was carried out with the purpose of investigating whether children who received training by use of the tabletop model performed better in real road traffic situations than children who did not receive such training. The purpose of the training was to teach the children to look for safe spots to cross the road.

Results

Table 2 shows overall mean total scores for children in test groups and control groups at both schools before and after training. The results demonstrate that both groups performed significantly better on the second measurement (i.e. after training of the test group). The improvement in traffic behaviour has been somewhat larger in the test group compared to the control group, as demonstrated by a positive d-value of 0.08. The size of the d-value suggests, however, that the table-top model

Discussion

The results of the present study show that road safety training using a tabletop model has the potential of improving children’s performance in a number of traffic situations. However, the positive effect of training could only be documented at one of the schools that took part. At the other school, the semi-urban school, no such effect could be found.

At Ila, the largest improvements in performance have taken place for the use of signalised crossings and pavements. But, these are also the tasks

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