Bikepool-A School-Based Program to Teach Children How to Bike

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Sustainable Mobility
• Pedestrian and Cyclist Safety

Background:

• Schools provide an ideal setting for promoting cycling skills among children and adolescents.
• Safe participation in active transport for young people relies on age-appropriate cycling competencies.
• The bikepool program is a large-scale, school-based initiative evaluated in Hesse, Germany.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of the bikepool program in improving cycling competence among secondary school students.
• To assess the impact of the program on self-reported cycling frequency.
• To examine if intervention effects vary based on students' initial cycling skill levels.

Main Methods:

• A quasi-experimental pre-post design with a mixed-methods approach was employed.
• Cycling competence was measured using a newly developed standardized skills test for 182 secondary school students.
• Self-reported cycling frequency was assessed via questionnaires in intervention (n=109) and control (n=112) groups.

Main Results:

• Significant improvements in safety-related cycling performance were observed post-intervention across most tested components.
• Students with the lowest baseline cycling competence showed the most substantial absolute gains in skills.
• No significant increase in self-reported cycling frequency was found in the intervention group compared to the control group.

Conclusions:

• The bikepool program effectively enhances students' cycling competence in safety-related tasks.
• Improved cycling skills alone did not increase cycling frequency, indicating a need for multi-component strategies.
• The study highlights the lack of standardized cycling competence assessments and surveillance in children's active mobility research.