Safe 'n Fun: An Injury Prevention Kit

DESCRIPTION (provided by investigator): In the fourth grade children are just entering bicycling's danger age of 10 to 14 years old. Between 1992 and 1995, an average of 143 10 to 14 year olds died annually from bicycling related injuries. Other wheel activities, such as skateboarding, in-line skating, scooters and skateboarding also have been shown to cause injury and even death. The primary goal of the program, Safe and Fun: A Prevention Kit is to increase safe wheel recreational behavior among fourt h graders. To reach this goal, the primary objectives of the program Safe ant Fun: A Prevention Kit are to teach fourth graders: 1.) how injuries are caused and prevented, 2.) how to differentiate between safe and unsafe behavior, 3.) how to make safe and informed decisions and 4.) how to make a difference' related to safety issues. The Global Learning Systems (GLS) product fills a gap in elementary school wheel safety education by providing a relatively low cost, rigorously field-tested, comprehensive and simulated program--a safe and fun place-- for learning and practice to occur, thereby increasing chances of learning new skills and information about the activities enjoyed by 8-10 years olds while decreasing the potential health risks, time and money spen t in hospital emergency rooms. Owing to the success of Phase I, GLS will expand upon the interactive, scenario-based, simulative, multimedia-rich prototype CD-ROM prevention strategy it designed, developed and evaluated in Phase I and expand it to a blende d solution to include, CD-RQM, the Web and print materials for in-class learning and family involvement. The field test design will be a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design with two post-tests---the second post-test will be administered three months after the first. The testing will include two sets of schools, matched by cultural and socio-economic characteristics. Half of the students, or two schools, will be randomly assigned to either the GLS blended solution or to a more conventional (print-base d materials) recreational wheel safety program. The program's feasibility will be based on relevant measures of participant knowledge of the content, changes in behavior and attitudes, and self-efficacy. Based upon the outcomes of the Phase II evaluation t he product will be revised for marketing to elementary schools, other educational and/or safety organizations targeting eight to 10 year olds and home computer consumers.