This research focused on a general study of traffic safety park for children and the effectiveness of the traffic safety education program. A general study of traffic safety parks were performed by visiting 11 traffic safety parks located in Seoul and...
This research focused on a general study of traffic safety park for children and the effectiveness of the traffic safety education program. A general study of traffic safety parks were performed by visiting 11 traffic safety parks located in Seoul and Kyonggi Province. Research questionnaires were made by selecting and customizing adequate parts from the questionnaire used by the Road Traffic Safety Authority in 2003 for the same purpose.
To verify the effectiveness of the traffic safety education, thirty six children aged 6 who never visited a traffic safety park were sampled. One by one, interviews were made before and after education to evaluate the change of traffic safety knowledge, ability to recognize dangerous traffic situations and ability to solve traffic problems.
A paired t-test before and after education was performed to verify the effectiveness of education. To find out co-relation among the three factors, Pearson co-relation analysis was performed.
According to a general study of traffic safety park for children, 11 parks were operating around Seoul and Kyonggi Province area. Among them 9 parks were newly constructed within 6 years. This indicates that the demand for traffic education had increased during those times. Most of the traffic safety parks were operated by City or District office but the actual education was performed by non-governmental organizations.
Because of a shortage of funds, not all traffic safety parks had sufficient education materials and equipment. Those parks that had sufficient materials did not necessarily utilize them effectively.
In search of education program, theoretical lecture, showing an example and watching video tape about safe road crossing skill were main programs of in house education, practicing road crossing and teaching the meaning of road signs were for field education. But in operating this education program it was not easy to expect educational effect because too many children should attend class at the same time and these children have short duration of concentration. Four to five teachers took part in education at one time and they had entry level and substitute education about traffic safety from an education-operating institute. Volunteers education was done in the traffic safety park.
According to the result of the effectiveness of traffic safety park education, it was found that this education was effective in increasing traffic safety knowledge but not so effective in increasing ability to recognize dangerous traffic situations and ability to solve traffic problems.
Theres also no statistically meaningful co-relation between traffic safety knowledge and ability to solve traffic problems. This shows that leading behavioral change by theoretical education is very difficult.