Lasting effects of short-term training on preschoolers' street-crossing behavior.
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.
Albert
Rachel R
RR
211 Uris Hall, Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14858, USA.
Dolgin
Kim G
KG
D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000517:prevention & control*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003479:Curriculum; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D017751:Safety Management / Q000379:methods*