The Effect of Regular and Practical Traffic Training in Formal Educatıon on Children's Traffic Knowledge and Perception

Trafik, gunumuzun onemli halk sagligi sorunlarindan biridir. Yol actigi maddi ve manevi kayiplar sebebi ile tum dunya ulkelerinin mucadele ettigi onemli sorunlarin basinda gelmektedir. Guvenli bir trafik ortami olusturmak ve trafikteki mevcut kaza risklerini en aza indirmek icin kucuk yaslardan itibaren cocuklara trafik egitimi verilmesi cok onemlidir. Cocuklara trafik kultur ve bilincinin asilanmasi, orgun egitim icerisinde kapsamli, surekli ve sistemli olarak verilecek trafik guvenligi egitimi ile mumkundur. Kucuk yaslarda baslayacak trafik egitimi cocuklarin dogru davranis modellerini kazanmasini saglayacaktir. Bu calismada; trafik olgusu, ulkemizdeki trafik guvenligi egitimi, orgun egitim sisteminin icindeki yeri, cocuk trafik guvenligi egitiminin onemi, hedefleri ve amaclari, konularina deginilmistir. Ankara ilinden iki farkli okul secilerek anket calismasi yapilmis ve bu iki okul ogrencileri arasindaki trafik bilgi ve algi farki ortaya konulmustur. Secilen A okulunda Milli Egitim Bakanligi mufredati uygulanmakta olup “trafik” konusu 4. sinifa kadar diger derslerin icerisinde verilmektedir. B okulunda ise 1. siniftan itibaren hem teorik hem de okulun icerisinde bulunan cocuk trafik egitim parki vasitasiyla uygulamali bir sekilde trafik guvenligi egitimi verilmektedir. Calisma sonucunda; trafik konusunda surekli ve uygulamali trafik egitimi alan cocuklarin trafik kurallarini daha iyi bildigi ve icsellestirdigi ortaya konulmustur.


Introduction
The biggest indicator of the absence of information and culture and habits of the people to obey traffic rules is the loss of about ten thousand of our people every year due to traffic accidents in Turkey.According to data from the year 2012 as a result of traffic accidents occurred in Turkey have been identified that 7.00% of those killed, 11.80% of those injured consisting of children in the 0-14 age range.(ÇTÇR, 2013).When Table 1 is examined, this ratio is much higher than the average seen in World countries (ITSD, 2013).

Country
Traffic accidents 0-14 years mortality rate ( To reduce child mortality in traffic accidents, the cause of the accident exposure of children should be well analyzed.In the literature, the result of the efforts made in this regard was reached in the following findings. Children from families in low socioeconomic status are exposed to more of traffic accidents (especially pedestrians) than children from high socioeconomic status families.The most important reason for this is the environment where they live and due they go to school by walking.(Jonah & Engel, 1983;Knoblauch, Roberts & Norton, 1994;Tobey & Shunman, 1984).Low educational level families kids (Durkin, Davidson, Kuhn & Barlow, 1994) and by acting incorrectly in traffic being wrong role models families kids (Bly, Jones & Christie, 2005;Quraishi, Mickalide & Cody, 2005) is exposed to more traffic accidents.
Due to today's physical inactivity, the abundance of external stimuli and to the large portion of children spending their time on computer and television; especially in children aged between 8-12 years, traffic perception does not seem to have the required level of their ages.The increasing number of vehicles, the reduction of the children's play area, the increase the city's traffic problems reduces the development of psychomotor skills of children in traffic.It increases the risk factor of children in traffic.Again; even if their children ages is convenient to be on the traffic, because that they don't want them taking part in traffic as pedestrians or cyclists.It prevents children to recognize the traffic on the right time and place (DaCoTa, 2012).On traffic environment, understanding the knowledge and the ability to absorb the information given varies according to age of children (Pieper, 1990).Traffic perception and position in the traffic according to children's age group can be divided into 4 groups (Neuman, 2008).
Until two years of age; children percept the traffic in its simplest form, In other words they detects as an image.All objects observed in the circulation have no permanence in his memory.For example, the car that the child sees one second before, once it is no longer visible to him it no longer exists.Two-six years old; children sees the world and the traffic as self-centered.All his movings are directed by his viewpoint, feelings, expectations and fears.If he see approaching a vehicle, he recognizes that the driver also see him.There is an understanding, the faster I move in traffic and the faster the risk will be surpassed.On the traffic he cannot distinguish the order of importance to things that he must concentrate.For example, instead of paying attention to the proximity and speed of the approaching vehicle he will make attention to the color.The phenomenon of perspective is not fully formed, cannot predict the distance of the approaching vehicle itself.Aged between 6-12 year; getting out from the selfcentrism has begun to put itself in place of other people.By dominating completely abstract concepts such as time, speed, he is dominating also concrete concepts such as vehicle size distance of schools as well.He get to know the traffic not in a closed environment but on the real environment.Between 12-14 years of age; he is able to comprehend abstract and concrete concepts in traffic.He can determine his status in the traffic and avoid risks.He can resonate about situations never met before on traffic.
Children's risk factors in traffic can be enlisted under four main sub-factors.The first one is developmental factors (age, physical development), the second one is the role of families in traffic education and control, the third sub-factor includes child's psychological and behavioral characters (hyperactivity, depression), and the fourth factor involves the environment in which the child is living in the traffic flow (Christoffel, Donovan & Schofer, 1996).Although children traffic risk consciousness is developed by their traffic experiences, studies on the risk awareness of traffic in children prove that they are classified into 3 main groups (DaCoTa, 2012).
Narrow risk awareness detects a danger immediately at the time it occurs.Therefore, it is impossible to avoid the danger (around the age of five).Accumulated risk awareness enables the child to know that specific situations are dangerous.For example, the child knows that going downhill fast by bike leads to a dangerous situation so he/she avoids it (around the age of eight).Preventive (prophylactic) risk awareness enables the child to know risky situations and take precautions to avoid them.For example, he/she looks for a safer place to walk across the street even if it extends the way (around age of 10).In adolescence risk awareness, it becomes difficult to define children's risk habits that we call adolescent period, between 11-14 ages.Because around these ages, although the child is fully conscious of the risks, the excessive self-confidence is developed and they feel that they can overcome any risks.Especially, it is interesting to note that the risks they take in traffic with people of their age increase.
However, studies signify that continuous and efficient traffic education given to children in the formal education system is very important to make them understand and internalize the traffic rules (Gregersen & Nolen, 1994;Raftery & Wundersitz, 2011).The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of regular, continuous and practical traffic education on elementary school level children's perception and knowledge of traffic knowledge.

Method The Sampling and The Limitations of The Study
The study has been conducted in two different primary schools, which are located in the district of Çukurambar in Ankara.The participants involve 4 th grade students, who are around 10 years old.Traffic training in primary school level has been provided limited and without practice within other courses up to 4 th grade depending on the Ministry of Education curriculum (MEB, 2015).Therefore, school A has been selected by random sampling method.On the other hand, School B is the only school which has a "juvenile traffic training park" inside, and from the 1st grade it is the only one which provides one-hour theoretical and practical traffic training courses each week.To test the objectives of the study, the school B has been selected on purpose.One limitation of the study is that there isn't a second alternative school to School B offering traffic training both theoretically and practically.In this school, the 4th grade is the only one who has completed the traffic training and the number of students is 18.For this reason, 18 4 th grade students from school A have been involved in the study in terms of reliability.The participant students in school A are 8 males and 10 females, whereas six males and 12 females constitute the participants in School B. Differences regarding gender have not been taken into consideration in this study.

Instruments
The research data were collected on March 3 to 24 in 2014, and the research questions were prepared with open-ended questions, which consists a qualitative assessment form including 15 questions, to ensure that students could answer with their own words.Qualitative evaluation questions in the form were prepared by utilizing the 2918 Road Traffic Act, and by benefiting from the literature studies conducted on children's comprehension.Finally, it has been simplified so as to reach 10-yearold children's perceptions (Kavsıracı, 2014).The form evaluation was done by authors again by benefiting of the Road Traffic Law.For the creation of the form and its evaluation, the knowledge and experience of the authors was benefited and surface validity method was adopted (Şencan, 2002).The information questioned in the form has been considered as valid and reliable since the same results will be obtained in a second evaluation and it was determined as having consistent feature, which was determined by 2918 Road Traffic Law.

Findings
The findings of the study have been put forward depending on the participant students' answers for the questions about traffic addressed to them.The number of students, who responded to the questions and the percentages, are shown in parentheses.
What is traffic?The place where cars go (2) (11.10%)No response or irrelevant response (3) (16.70%)By examining Table 2, we can see that three students of school A are completely away from the term of "traffic", and the others seems to give missing (insufficient) answers.It is extremely remarkable that none of the children mention about the term "pedestrian" in traffic issue.On the other hand, about 78.00% students in school B seem to know the term of "Traffic" completely.To make a general evaluation, from two schools a total of six children, "traffic jam" comes in their mind when the term traffic is mentioned and this finding matches with other studies' findings in the related literature (Hatipoğlu, 2011).3, we have observed that 13 students of school A perceive a traffic accident as a collision of vehicles.Only two students define traffic accident as death / ambulance, they define about the objects that they saw after the accident.12 students of School B (66.70%) are aware that a traffic accident consists both vehicle accidents and pedestrians.

What is Traffic Accident?
Who is Pedestrian?  4, 44.40 % students of school A can define who a pedestrian is and the rest of the students seem to confuse the concept of pedestrian with the crosswalk.Almost all of the students from School B (88.90%) know the term of pedestrian and could explain it in right words.

What is intersection?
Table 5.

Answers Given to the Description of Intersection.
School A School B The place where vehicles return (7) (38.90%) The place where roads separate or join (9) (50.00%)The place where roads separate or join (1) (5.50%) The place where vehicles return (4) (22.20%) No answer (10) (55.60%) No answer (5) (27.80%) By examining Table 5, only one student from school A knows the definition of intersection correctly.However, it can be said that the concept of intersection realizes correctly in their minds and they can build a parallelism with the image of the movement seen in an intersection by examining the answer ''the place where vehicles return ''.Therefore, it will not misleading to state that 45.00% of children's answers are correct about intersection.On the other hand, 50.00% of students from school B have defined intersection correctly, and 72.20% of them could imagine the concept of intersection in their minds.
Table 6 demonstrates that elementary school students from each school know the concept of the "traffic police".In the last category labeled as 'others' include students' responses like 'The police is a person who shows us the way when we are lost' or 'The police is a person who controls us whether we wore our seatbelts or not'.Those responses reveal that children perceive the traffic police role as if he is a witness of traffic situations.

Who is Traffic Police?
Table 6.Answers Given to the Traffic Police Description.

School A
School B The person who manages traffic in the absence or unworking of traffic lights (5) (27.70%) The person who manages and directs the traffic (12) (66.60%)The person who manages and directs the traffic (3) (16.70%) The person who don't obey the rules (3) (16.70%) The person providing the safety of vehicles and pedestrians (4) (22.20%) The person who warns people that violate the rules (3) (16.70%)Others (3) (16.70%) Who is passenger?Irrelevant answers or no answers (3) (16.70%) Table 7 shows us that students of School A confuse the concepts of the driver and the passenger.50.00% of school B students have stated that they definitely know the concept of passenger and they have explained the concept in right words.No answer (1) (5.50%)

What will we use to cross the road safely?
By examining the answers, we have observed that 50% students of school B know all places to cross safely on roadways.33.30% of students responded lower / upper walkway, 11.10% responded the places where situated traffic lights and only one student could not give an answer to the question.None of the students from School A have given the right answer to the question.Furthermore, 27.80% of the students had no idea on the matter.

What is the most important thing we need to be careful as pedestrians in traffic?
Table 9. Answers Given to the Question about Things We Need to be Careful as Pedestrians.To not make excessive speed, drive the car drunk, etc (9) (50.00%) To not make excessive speed, drive the car drunk, etc (1) (5.50%) The findings on Table 9 show that 50.00% students from school A have confused the rules to consider as a pedestrian with those of the vehicle driver.This ratio enables us to infer that the participant students do not have the awareness and responsibility of being a pedestrian in traffic.This rate in school B is 5.50%.
The students were asked to reply to the question "If we have to walk on the roads that do not have pavements, where should we walk?Why?".When the answers to that question have been analyzed, it was found out that only one student from School A has given the right answer as "I have to walk on the left side of the road, so cars can see me".Unlike School A, 13 students from School B have given the right answer.The rate of correct responses given to that question by school A is 5.60% and for school B it is 72.00%.
The question "What is the meaning for the colors of traffic lights and what do they mean for drivers?''was asked to the students and all students from school B gave the correct answer.However, two students from school A gave a wrong or incomplete answer which is very surprising since the traffic lights, their colors and the messages they convey are the basic issues of traffic.
We asked children to exemplify two vehicles, which have the right of way in traffic.Five students from school B and one student from school A couldn't give any answers or gave a wrong answer.Regarding this question, the success of students from school A is 72.00% and for school B the rate of success is 94.00%.In both schools, the most stated vehicle was ambulance.
Regarding emergency, we asked the students ''in case of a traffic accident which number should we call to help those injured?''.School A students answered the question correctly with the rate of 78.00% and the students from school B answered the same question correctly with the rate of 89.00%.
We asked the students "What is the function of a seat belt?''.All students from school B answered the question correctly by stating that '' Prevents us from ejection outside when the driver steps on the brakes, it allows us to stay fixed in the car, in a situation of an accident prevents us to hit our heads or skidding''.Those responses have demonstrated that they know the seatbelt and its usage purpose very well.However, 67.00% of the students from school A know the purpose of using a seat belt.33.00% of these students demonstrated with their general answer as "prevents accidents, we need to wear" that they didn't internalize or comprehend the purpose of seat belt use.
All of the students from school B stated that they ride in the back seat whereas 28.00% of the students from school A responded as ''sometimes on front seat, sometimes on back seat''.It is seen that School A students have not internalized such a very important traffic rule enough.
Traffic signpost knowledge.10 traffic signs have been shown to the students, and requested them to write the meanings (names) that they know.Students' traffic signs knowledge is displayed and summarized on Table 10.By examining the data on Table 10, it has been found out that students from school B have more knowledge about traffic signs than students from school A. In addition, it can be inferred that the level of students' knowledge regarding right answers from school A is closer to the students' answers from school B.
A survey has been conducted by the Council of Highway Traffic Safety for the purpose to identify how much the traffic signs are known and by how many drivers they are known.The questionnaire, prepared by the group members of the Council, was applied on 1478 drivers in selected regions in Ankara by the Middle East Technical University Transportation Research department and the results were analyzed (EGM, 2015).When the mentioned study's results compared with the results of the study, it has been found out that students from school B, who had consistently and applied traffic education course know about "crosswalk", "school crossing", "cars not allowed," "forbidden to pass the car in front" and "controlled rail crossing" signs at a higher degree than drivers.

Discussion, Conclusion & Implementation
Traffic is a dynamic system in which people, vehicles and road elements interact and be in harmony (Payam, 2012).When human factor is considered in the context of traffic, education factor comes into prominence.Training about traffic should be provided at early ages in childhood as it is in every subject.To attain permanent traffic training and enable the children internalize the training, children must be exposed to a continuous training.Therefore, primary school period is a very important time to gain the basic knowledge and to develop.
Traffic risk perception in children is lower than adults because their mental and physical development is still in progress.For this reason, children are part of the group who are mostly affected in accidents.Continuous and effective road traffic safety courses must be provided to the children in preschool and primary school periods to protect children from traffic accidents, and to educate them as sensitive individuals for the future (Hatipoğlu, Özdemir & Arıkan, 2012).
This study has sought for to what extent a systematical and continuous traffic training can affect primary school children's traffic knowledge and perceptions.In order to realize this aim, a qualitative evaluation form was prepared and administered to two different 4th grade schools students.
In School A, Ministry of Education Curriculum is practiced and the subject of traffic is practiced limited in other courses until fourth grade.Contrary to this, in School B traffic security training is provided both theoretically and practical with the help of "juvenile traffic training park" inside school, starting from first grade.The findings of the study reveal that students from school B, who have taken theoretical and practical traffic courses from the first grade during the primary school, are better than students from school A about the basic definitions such as traffic, pedestrians, passengers and also they seem to know much better their places in traffic much better.
Furthermore, students from school A have some difficulties in expressing about the risky acts that they may encounter in traffic and they also seem to be far behind the students in School B about avoiding life-threatening conditions in traffic.According to the findings, it is clear that students of School B internalize traffic rules thereby knowing the reasons of rules instead of memorizing them (see answers to questions such as seat belt ).
The studies held in the related field have shown that almost all primary school students know that they must look first to the left than to the right before going across the road; however it has also been stated that they could not find the right and the left spontaneously (DaCoTa, 2012).In another study focusing on primary school students in England, it has been put forward that no behavioral changes have been observed when children were provided theoretical knowledge; however, there have been behavioral changes when children got practical training (Zeedyk & Wallace, 2001).The findings regarding school B students' traffic knowledge and perceptions seem to confirm these studies in the literature.Using the "juvenile traffic training park" inside the school B, students internalize their theoretical knowledge by practice and put their knowledge in to the right behavior.
To protect children from road traffic accidents, and enable them to become sensitive individuals, who meet the rules, continuous and effective road traffic safety education is required during pre-school and primary school periods.Today, the quality of traffic safety education provided to students in schools has not reached to a desired level yet.In primary schools up to 4th grades, traffic training is given within different courses very limited by just focusing on the issues, which are considered important by the teachers of those courses.For permanent traffic knowledge, children should internalize this training and transform it to a behavior; therefore traffic training should be systematic.And it's possible only if this traffic training is integrated to the curriculum, including at least 4 years in primary school education.
The findings of the study , "Awareness on Traffic Signs", conducted by Road Traffic Security Council and Middle East Technical University Transportation Research Center also support this proposal (EGM, 2015).Raising the effectiveness and number of "juvenile traffic training parks" for children to enable them convert the theoretical training as a right behavior.In world rank, although we are in the first place in the child deaths in traffic accidents (Table 1), in the research of literature in Turkey only seven articles on child traffic education and child traffic safety have been identified (Bay, Akduman & Alisinanoğlu, 2009;Bay & Akduman, 2009;Güven, Akduman & Alisinanoğlu, 2009;Hatipoğlu, 2011;Hatipoğlu et.al., 2012;Şimşek, Akduman & Alisinanoğlu, 2009;. Tombaklar, 2002).In those articles, the cause of children's having accidents and their traffic knowledge have been examined.However, there are not any studies examining changes in children's traffic knowledge and perception following traffic training.Thus, any relevant studies do not exist to compare with the findings of our study.
To assess the positive effects of systematic traffic training on children, it is suggested that training and traffic experts should work together on this subject to create practices.It is also recommended, especially to the Ministry of Education and other related institutions about education that they should make necessary legal arrangements for pre-school and primary school period, giving more effective and practical traffic education and holding projects and campaigns in this regard.Providing effective and continuous traffic education to children from the moment they start to walk will reduce the risk of these children lost their lives in traffic accidents and will form the future generations more educated and aware of the traffic issue after 15-20 years.

Table 2 .
Answers to the Description of Traffic.

Table 3 .
Answers to Traffic Accidents Description.

Table 4 .
Answers Given to the Description of Pedestrian.

Table 7 .
Answers Given to the Description of Passenger.

Table 8 .
Given Answers to Questions about Safe Crossing.