Pedestrian Safety Clinical Trial
Official title:
Using Virtual Reality to Train Children in Pedestrian Safety
Pedestrian injuries are among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in American
children ages 7-8, but existing behavior-oriented interventions achieve only modest success.
One limitation to existing interventions is that they fail to provide children with the
repeated practice needed to develop the complex perceptual and cognitive skills required for
safe pedestrian activity.
Virtual reality (VR) offers a highly promising technique to train children in pedestrian
safety skills. VR permits repeated unsupervised practice without risk of injury; automated
feedback to children on success or failure in crossings; adjustment of traffic density and
speed to match children's skill level; and an appealing and fun environment for training.
The proposed research is designed to test the efficacy of virtual reality as a tool to train
child pedestrians in safe street-crossing behavior.
A randomized controlled trial will be conducted with four equal-sized groups of children
ages 7-8 (total N = 240). One group will receive training in an interactive and immersive
virtual pedestrian environment. The virtual environment, already developed, has been
demonstrated to have face, construct, and convergent validity. The second group will receive
pedestrian safety training via video and computer strategies that are most widely used in
American schools today. The third group will receive what is judged to be the most
efficacious treatment currently available, individualized behavioral training at streetside
locations. The fourth and final group will serve as a no-contact control group. All
participants in all groups will be exposed to a range of field- and laboratory-based
measures of pedestrian skill during baseline and post-intervention visits, as well as during
a six-month follow-up assessment. Primary analyses will be conducted through linear mixed
models designed to test change over time in the four intervention groups. We hypothesize all
children in active learning groups will increase pedestrian safety skills, but the largest
increase will be among children in the virtual reality group.
n/a
Allocation: Randomized, Endpoint Classification: Safety/Efficacy Study, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Open Label, Primary Purpose: Prevention
| Status | Clinical Trial | Phase | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Completed |
NCT00758615 -
Pilot Evaluation of a Walking School Bus Program
|
N/A |