Five road safety education programmes for young adolescent pedestrians and cyclists: a multi-programme evaluation in...

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Education
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Road safety education (RSE) for young adolescents is crucial for preventing injuries.
• Evaluating RSE effectiveness often relies on injury or crash data, which can be infrequent or delayed.
• There is a need for practical methods to assess RSE impact on behavior.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and apply a practical approach for assessing and comparing the effectiveness of five short RSE programs for young adolescents.
• To evaluate RSE impact using self-reported behavior rather than injury or crash data.
• To determine which types of RSE programs are most effective.

Main Methods:

• A pre-test/post-test design was used with intervention and reference groups.
• Questionnaires assessed self-reported safety behavior before and one month after RSE participation.
• Categorical principal components analysis and analysis of covariance were employed to analyze safety scores.

Main Results:

• Three of the five RSE programs significantly improved self-reported safety behavior.
• The proportion of participants showing behavior change ranged from 3% to 20% compared to the reference group.
• Cognitive and fear-appeal approaches showed similar effectiveness.

Conclusions:

• The developed method provides a useful tool for assessing and comparing RSE program effectiveness based on self-reported behavior.
• While RSE can improve safety behaviors, the magnitude of change may be small.
• Further research can refine RSE strategies for greater impact.