Stop, look, listen, and think? What young children really do when crossing the road 學生：董瑩蟬

Purpose This paper used observe method that investigated children road crossing behaviors. The sites chooses a T Intersection.

Reference In developed countries, the children pedestrian accidents was the most serious of all health risks. (Thomson et al.,1996) The research designed program to investigated the children’s pedestrian skills. (Department of transport et al.,1996)

Reference There were many studies pedestrian issue, simulated environments and techniques have gained popularity, such as the pretend road (Lee et al.,1984; young and Lee,1987), kerbside judgements (Demetre et al.,1993), and traffic gardens (Sandels, 1975).

Reference Department (1989) observed children real- life environments and coded their actions. Other studies used videotaped children’s actions inconspicuously (Schioldborg, 1976; Valavuo, 1976; Molen, 1983; all cited in Thomson et al.,1996).

Method Participants –56 children, age range between 5 to 6 years.(31B and 25G) Equipment –Sony UVW 100P Pro- Betacam SP Camcorder. 18 feet 16 feet

Method Sites –See Fig 1 Process –Data collect 2 days –The first crossing from A to B (see fig 1) –The second crossing from C to D (see fig 1) –Finish two crossing about 4 min

Method The first crossing record behavior include: –looked for traffic on the main road before reaching kerb –stopped at the kerb –looked for traffic while stopped at kerb –looked at the moving car to their right –waited for the car to move off before crossing –continued to look for traffic while crossing –the style in which the children crossed (i.e. walking vs. running or skipping)

Method The second crossing record behavior include: –looked for traffic before reaching the kerb –stopped at the kerb –stopped at the edge of the parked cars –looked for traffic while stopped at the edge of the cars –continued to look for traffic while crossing –the style in which the children crossed

Result The result analysis used two method. The first considered group performance. Analysis the sample percentage in each behavior. The second analysis individual differences in each behavior.

Result

There are ten children required adult help at the first crossing task. The data were not recorded in result. The first crossing result showed that that has 40% children before crossing never look at moving vehicle. There were 75% children running/skipping crossing road.

Result

There are five children required adult help at the second crossing task. The data were not recorded in result. There were 35% children stooped at the edge of the cars. There were about 50% children walk to crossing the road.

Result The right behaviors were record one scores for the first and second crossing with each children. And the behaviors were wrong that the score were zero. The children chose to cross alone that the mean score was1.74 (S.D.=1.53) for first crossing. And 1.94 (S.D.=1.48) for second crossing. The two scores were significant different. r(54)=0.66,P<0.001

Discussion The result found that the children has poor at crossing road. It similar to many studies result. The children were working with failed to look before stepping out into traffic (Grayson, 1975; Molen, 1981; Scottish Development Department, 1989) Foot et al.,1999 found the young children’s visual tends to be inadequate and unfocused.

Discussion The individual different considered with this result, similar to Whitebread and Neilson (1999) measuring children ability that found individual difference in skills. This paper main purpose was to investigated the child behavior on road. There were many studied investigated that. (Zeedyk et al.,1997; Rothengatter, 1981)

Conclusion Some children cant crossing the road alone. Children pedestrian was failed to stoop before they crossing. There were many children running to cross the road.