ROAD SAFETY EDUCATION IN THE GLOBAL AND SOUTH AFRICAN CONTEXT

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CHAPTER 3. LEARNING THEORIES: THE YOUNG CHILD AND ROAD SAFETY EDUCATION

Introduction

In Chapter 3, I expand the literature review with the focus on possible theories related to the young child, possible learning theories and RSE. This study focuses on children in the Intermediate Phase who are between the ages of 9 and 14 years. In this age range children in South Africa have been introduced to RSE in the formal setting of the school since Grade 1. These theories will provide an understanding of how children acquire and internalise their attitudes and behaviour towards RSE. The chapter is therefore an extension of the theoretical framework described in Chapter 2. In addition, I comment on factors that might influence the learning of road safety skills in this chapter.
The central focus of the chapter is the description of theories applicable to children learning road safety skills. These theories relate to the focus of the study, namely investigating the response of children to RSE with special reference to a rural environment which is characterised by a lack of resources and poverty. This background served as the basis for developing an observation schedule and other research tools to be used in the data gathering process. The information in this chapter also served as a framework for suggesting a teaching or facilitation approach that could be appropriate for the teaching of road safety to young children who are still in the process of maturation.
The study is informed by the assumption that the child is a totality of all his or her experiences. The various theories discussed in this chapter serve as a mind map or point of reference for appreciating the various processes and stages of the development of the child and how these stages impact on their development and learning capacities (Biehler, 1974, p. 105; Bergan & Dunn, 1970, pp. 15-16; Mayer, 1987, p. 18-44). The development theories assisted me in suggesting an instructional theory for road safety.

Profile of the target group participating in the investigation

The target group for this study is children from a rural primary school in the Moloto area along the R573 road, 40 kilometres east of Pretoria, in Mpumalanga. The area has been chosen as the school is close to the busy road which exposes the children to danger when going to school in the morning and returning home in the afternoons. The children are mostly from working class families. Most parents commute daily to Pretoria, where they work. The children are then left on their own to negotiate the roads to and from school. The home environment does not offer the children an opportunity to acquire basic road safety skills before they start their schooling. Most families do not have family cars. The mode of travel is mostly by bus (National Household Travel Survey, 2003; Museru et al., 2003; Van Vuuren, n.d.; Downing et al., 1991). Ndungane (2006, p.8), former Archbishop of Cape Town, refers to the children from such communities as “the most needy sector of our population – a sector that has so little voice within the political and decision-making structures of our country” (Monson, Hall, Smith & Shung-King, 2006).
The National Household Travel Survey (2003, p. 19) indicates that in South Africa the vast majority, 76%, of children and students walk to their educational destinations. Almost three million of the children spend more than one hour a day walking to and from the education centres. An analysis of the walking times for pedestrians (including children) per province is given in Table 3.1.
The implication for road safety is that these children that walk to school on their own are exposed to the dangers of crossing busy roads by themselves while their parents are at work. Parents in these rural communities do not accompany their children to school even if they are at home. An article titled “Boy, 16, killed in ‘high-speed’ bus crash” (Shonisani, 2004) illustrates the point clearly:
A speeding bus ploughed into a group of school children in Atteridgeville west of Pretoria yesterday, leaving a 16-year-old boy dead and two others seriously injured.
The children had been waiting to be taken to school at 8 am, when they allegedly saw the bus moving at high speed towards them.
Table 3.2 shows walking times to educational centres by type of establishment. Some 25% of primary school children who walk to school (1,7 million) walk for longer than 30 minutes in one direction. Considering all children who walk to school, there are 560 000 who spend more than two hours per day walking to and from school. The purpose of the data is to illustrate the level of exposure for children to roads as pedestrians.
Mpumalanga has the second smallest share of the South African population according to Statistics South Africa (2004, p. 30), with 7% of the total population residing in this province. Of this population, 973 000 are children who walk to school – thus a large number. The relevancy of this information is that such a large number of children are daily exposed to the danger of being knocked down by vehicles on their way to school, as can be seen in Table 3.2 (see also Chiduo & Minja, n.d.).
In a situation where the level of RSE is low, such a high level of exposure could be very dangerous for children. This therefore makes out an even more compelling case for RSE to be understood and prioritised in the South African context. The growing economy is bringing a new dimension into this scenario as more people are buying cars, which means there are more drivers on the roads.

Child development and the learning of road safety

Children’s development has a bearing on their uptake of educational programmes (Quimby, n.d.; Van Vuuren, n.d.; Fontaine et al., 2006; McInerney, 2005; Piaget, 1973; Mayer, 1987; Slavin, 2000, p. 29). Munro (1969, p. 92) sees development as a continuous series of adjustments between changing self and changing environment which of course does not stop abruptly when bodily growth stops. Adults, like children, are constantly altering in order to achieve satisfaction of needs in accordance to the present level of development (Slavin, 2000, p. 28).
The UK Department for Transport (2006) indicates that a child’s development in the field of road safety must include two levels, i.e. the cognitive and the metacognitive. The argument is that the intellectual development of the child will lead to behavioural development. To internalise the road safety educational messages, the child should have reached a particular development level both cognitively and socially (Eloff et al., 2006; Chunk, 2000; Hansen & Zambo, 2005). Piaget (in Rosin, 1973, p. 50-51) argues that the stages of intellectual development do not necessarily follow a chronological order but are informed by the previous experiences of the child or individual. It also depends on the social milieu which could hasten or delay the manifestation of a certain stage of development (Slavin, 1994; Glover & Bruning, 1990; Schwebel & Raph, 1973).
RSE in the developed world is offered as a compulsory part of the mainstream curriculum. As indicated in the literature review in Chapter 2, in these countries children’s deaths as a result of road accidents have been reduced dramatically (Collins, 2006; Petersen, 2006; The Road Ahead, 2006; The Danish Road Safety Commission, 2000; Mohan & Tiwari, 1998). Studies show that the overall purpose of RSE is to teach children safe road behaviour in order for them to become safe road users either as pedestrians or as young adult drivers (Department for Transport, 2006, p. 1; Wittink, 1998).
With the advent of outcomes-based education (OBE) and the introduction of the National Curriculum Statement in South Africa, RSE became part of the mainstream curriculum (Mock et al., 2005; Van Vuuren, n.d.; Kobusingye, 2004; Sayer & Downing, 1996, p. 8-9). An evaluation of the South African road safety campaign, Arrive Alive, shows that although people are regularly exposed to RSE messages they do not necessarily translate that knowledge into safe road user behaviour (Road Traffic Management Corporation, 2005). The challenge is therefore to look at ways that RSE within the mainstream curriculum can influence children to learn and internalise safe ways of using roads. In the context of the South African situation the problem is exacerbated by the unplanned informal settlements developing along the major routes, especially in the rural areas.
The World Report on Child Injury Prevention (2008) indicates that as children grow and their world extends beyond the home and out into the local roads their level of exposure to danger, hazards and risks increases. In rural settings children play or live on the roadside and this exposure along with other risk factors inherent to childhood such as lack of knowledge and poor perception of speed, make them particularly vulnerable in traffic. Table 3.3 illustrates the stages of cognitive and psychosocial development described by Piaget and Erikson (in Biehler & Snowman, 1997; Eggen & Kauchak, 2001, p. 92; Mayer, 1987, p. 23).

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 
DECLARATION 
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
CHAPTER 1. AN OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.2 RATIONALE
1.3 CONTEXTUALISING THIS STUDY
1.3.1 Factors affecting road safety
1.3.2 Road safety and education
1.4 EXPLANATION OF CORE CONCEPTS
1.4.1 Response of rural primary school children
1.4.2 Road safety education programmes
1.4.3 Rural environment
1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1.5.1 Sub-questions
1.5.2 Aim of the study
1.5.3 Objectives of the study
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
1.7 UNIT OF ANALYSIS
1.8 THE STUDY
1.9 DATA ANALYSIS
1.10 ANTICIPATED RESEARCH CONSTRAINTS
1.11 ORGANISATION OF THE STUDY
1.12 SUMMARY
CHAPTER 2. ROAD SAFETY EDUCATION IN THE GLOBAL AND SOUTH AFRICAN CONTEXT 
2.1 INTRODUCTION
2.2 ROAD SAFETY AS A HUMAN RIGHT
2.3 ROAD SAFETY EDUCATION AND ROAD
2.4 CHILDREN AS VULNERABLE ROAD USERS
2.5 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.6 MAINSTREAMING ROAD SAFETY EDUCATION AS AN INTERVENTION MEASURE IN THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM
2.7 THE PURPOSE OF A ROAD SAFETY CURRICULUM AND RSE IN SCHOOLS
2.7.1 Road safety education in sub-Saharan Africa
2.7.2 The role of the school with special reference to the teaching and learning of road safety education
2.7.3 The role of the teacher with special reference to the teaching and learning of road safety
2.7.4 The role of the community and parents in road safety teaching and learning
2.7.5 The role of the child in road safety learning in the post-modern era
2.8 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 3. LEARNING THEORIES: THE YOUNG CHILD AND ROAD SAFETY EDUCATION …. 
3.1 INTRODUCTION
3.2 PROFILE OF THE TARGET GROUP PARTICIPATING IN THE INVESTIGATION
3.3 CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND THE LEARNING OF ROAD SAFETY
3.4 CHILDREN’S DEVELOPMENTAL PHASES
3.5 CONTENT OF ROAD SAFETY EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS AT THE INTERMEDIATE PHASE
3.6 THEORIES OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND THEIR RELEVANCE FOR THE LEARNING OF ROAD SAFETY
3.7 THE IMPACT OF THE RURAL ENVIRONMENT ON CHILDREN’S LEARNING OF ROAD SAFETY
3.8 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY, METHODS AND DATA COLLECTION STRATEGIES APPLIED DURING THE INVESTIGATION 
4.1 INTRODUCTION
4.2 RESEARCH DESIGN
4.3 PARTICIPANTS AND THE CASE STUDY
4.4 RESEARCH PROCESS
4.5 DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS
4.6 INTERVIEWS
4.7 DATA ANALYSIS
4.8 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY
4.9 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
4.10 EXPECTED LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
4.11 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 5. DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS: THE LIVED EXPERIENCES OF CHILDREN AND THEIR RESPONSE TO ROAD SAFETY EDUCATION 
5.1 INTRODUCTION
5.2 PROCESS USED IN THE ANALYSIS OF DATA
5.3 RESULTS OF THE THEME ANALYSIS
5.4 TEACHER INPUT INTO THE ROAD SAFETY PHENOMENON IN THE SCHOOL
5.5 SUMMARY OF DATA FROM INTERVIEWS
5.6 SUMMARY OF DATA FROM PARTICIPATORY METHODS
5.7 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 6. SYNTHESIS, SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY 
6.1 INTRODUCTION
6.2 AN OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
6.3 CONTRIBUTION OF THE STUDY TO THE BODY OF KNOWLEDGE IN ROAD SAFETY
6.4 EXTENDED FURTHER FINDINGS
6.5 RECOMMENDATIONS
6.6 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
6.7 CONCLUSION
LIST OF REFERENCES 
APPENDIX
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