Published Resources Details Thesis
- Title
- Process evaluation of a child pedestrian injury prevention intervention
- Type of Work
- PhD thesis
- Imprint
- Curtin University of Technology, Bentley WA, 2000
- Url
- http://espace.library.curtin.edu.au:80/R?func=dbin-jump-full&local_base=gen01-era02&object_id=11727
- Subject
- Western Australia
- Abstract
The Child Pedestrian Injury Prevention Project (CPIPP) is a school- and community-based intervention trial delivered to 2,500 primary school children in Perth from 1995 to 1997. The CPIPP was designed to improve children's pedestrian safety knowledge, their road related behaviours - crossing and playing, and to reduce their risk in, and exposure to, traffic. This thesis addresses the process evaluation of the CPIPP school-based intervention. In each of the three study years, teachers (after training) were asked to implement the CPIPP. Each year this comprised nine 40-minute pedestrian safety lessons and home activities. Lessons included road-crossing practice on real and simulated roads. Data were collected from the student cohort (n=1049) and their Grade 2, 3 and 4 teachers. Student outcome data including their pedestrian- related knowledge and road crossing and playing behaviours were assessed using a pre- and post-test self report questionnaire. The majority of teachers (70- 97 percent) and students (72-84 percent) responded positively to questions about their satisfaction with the CPIPP Grades 2, 3 and 4 curricula. Evidence in student work samples demonstrated that teachers taught 76 percent of the Grades 2 and 3 curricula, and 68 percent of the Grade 4 curricula. Teacher self- reported implementation rates were 88, 81 and 60 percent respectively for the three curricula. Teachers reported practising road crossing on a real road in one of six designated crossing practice lessons in 1996 and two lessons in 1997. Multivariate analyses revealed students pedestrian safety knowledge was significantly associated with teacher implementation of the classroom curriculum. This relationship was one of dose- response. It demonstrated students who, each year, received at least 7 lessons of the three CPIPP curricula showed a greater improvement in pedestrian safety knowledge than those students who received a lower dose of the curriculum. Significant effects on pedestrian safety knowledge were also observed for students who, each year, practised crossing a real road in at least one lesson of the curriculum. The relationship between implementation and student road crossing and road playing behaviours was not one of dose-response. This study also found that implementation of the CPIPP curriculum achieved a modest improvement in student pedestrian safety knowledge and possibly arrested the decline of safe road crossing behaviour. It also demonstrated that classroom pedestrian safety education alone, while necessary, is not sufficient to positively modify children's road crossing behaviours.