Psychology Faculty Work

Title

Lasting Effects of Short-Term Training on Preschoolers' Street Crossing Behavior

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2010

Publication Title

Accident Analysis and Prevention

Volume Number

42

Issue Number

2

DOI

10.1016/j.aap.2009.09.014

Abstract

Can short-term training improve preschoolers’ knowledge of road-crossing concepts as well as behavior in a real traffic situation? Forty children, aged four to five years, were assigned to one of four conditions (game, story, song, and control). Each condition participated in four 15-min classroom-based lessons over four weeks. Two assessments measuring knowledge of street-crossing concepts and one assessment measuring behavior on a real street were used to evaluate performance at baseline and one week and six months post-training. Children in all three experimental conditions showed a significant improvement over the control on the two conceptual assessments. Only children in the game condition significantly improved their behavior on the street-crossing assessment. Furthermore, children in all three experimental conditions retained the same levels of improvement at the six-month follow-up. These results demonstrate that one hour of training can create lasting improvements on preschool children's conceptual knowledge of traffic safety and road-crossing behavior on a real street.

ISSN

0001-4575

First Page

500

Last Page

508

Link Out URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2009.09.014

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