The Development Of Primary School Students' Skills And Their Relationship With Cognitive Level

Based on psychological analysis,the research use the empirical study method to analyze children' pedestrian skill's development level and existing problems,helping us discuss the factors influencing the cultivation of children' pedestrian skills,which is expected to provide theoretical basis and practical guidance to traffic safety education in the future.The research mainly concentrates on two themes.One is the development level of pupils' pedestrian skills and problems within;the other is the relevance between the development level of pupils' cognitive elements about traffic and their pedestrian skills.The research collected lots of information by searching for relevant documents,interviewing and consulting experts to build a structure of urban pupils' pedestrian skills and quantify each behavioral weight.Based on this,the researchers used naturalistic-observation method to observe and capture in videos the behavior of the 506 pupils ranged from grade 1 to grade 6,which were selected from 2 primary schools in Nantong Jiangsu Province,all through their way walking to school.The researchers used Observer XT 11.5,a behavioral analysis software,to analyze the videos collected,in order to know the development level of pupils' pedestrian skills and the problems within.There are mainly 3 focuses in the researches of the development level of pupils'cognitive elements about traffic.They are pupils' traffic risk perception and judgment,attention quality and visual search,which contain 5 experiments and 3 tests.The research content is as follows.According to the theory,"3 levels in traffic cognition ability",which advanced by Thomson(1996),the researchers designed 3 experiments:judgment tasks in different road situations,perception tasks in dangerous traffic situations to different extents and routine selection tasks in complicated situations to complete the research of development level of pupils' traffic risk perception and judgment 169 pupils were selected randomly from grade l,grade 2,grade 4 and grade 6 in primary schools in Nantong as experimental subjects,(160 subjects in the experiment,routine selection tasks in complicated situations),in comparison with 38 undergraduates and postgraduates in universities as subjects(31 subjects in the experiment,routine selection tasks in complicated situations).The information of these experimental subjects helped to analyze the development level of pupils' traffic risk perception and judgment,and their relevance to pedestrian skills.Researchers mainly used psychological test method in research of pupils'attention quality.166 pupils were selected randomly from grade 1,grade 2,grade 4 and grade 6 in primary schools in Nantong as experimental subjects,in comparison with 31 undergraduates and postgraduates in universities as subjects.The results of the tests helped analyze the development level of pupils' attention span,ability of concentration and attention distribution,and their relevance to pedestrian skills.In the research of pupils' traffic visual search ability level,spot the difference'test was used to study the level of pupils' visual search ability and Eye Movements tasks of strategies crossing the road in traffic simulation to get a view on pupils' visual search strategies.160 pupils were selected randomly from grade 1,grade 2,grade 4 and grade 6 in primary schools in Nantong as experimental subjects,in comparison with 41 undergraduates and postgraduates in universities as subjects,to study pupils' traffic visual search ability level and strategy features.The research result shows that:(1)The structure of urban pupils' pedestrian skills has 2 dimensions,"skills of crossing roads safely" and "skills of walking safely on roads",consisting of 11 and 8 target aims respectively,the weight ratios of which range from 0.08-0.14 in the corresponding dimension.(2)Pupils' pedestrian skills are in a relatively low level.The levels of "walking safely on roads skill" vary from grade to grade,such as grade 6 pupils in the highest level and grade 1 pupils the lowest,while the levels of "crossing roads safely " skill don't.And the gender factor has only a slight influence on pupils' pedestrian skills.(3)Pupils' risk perception and judgment abilities enhance as their grade goes up and has little relevance to gender.However,compared with adults,pupils still have lots of short-comings in risk perception and judgment ability,which makes them disadvantaged group in road traffic situations.Pupils' risk perception and judgment ability is relevant to their pedestrian skill level to some extent.(4)Pupils' attention quality will enhance as they grow up,leading to the vast variety in different grades.Pupils in grade 1 are obviously in a lower level than pupils in higher grade and adults.Besides,variety in gender is not notable.There is positive correlation between pupils' attention span and "walking safely on roads" skill,while there is little correlation between concentration and distribution of attention and pedestrian skills.(5)Pupils' traffic visual search ability level goes up as they grow,and visual search strategies more reasonable and useful.However,they are still on a low level compared with adults.Visual search levels don't vary with gender while visual search strategies do.There is notable relevance between pupils' visual search level and their attention span,attention concentration ability.Visual search strategy of pupils in low grades is obviously relevant to their pedestrian skills grades,but strategy in higher grades is not so.In conclusion,to achieve the effective implement of traffic safety education to children,we need to enhance the education and guide of right pedestrian behavior,cultivate pupils' traffic perception skills,teach them in different way in different ages according to their features and put multiple-carrier safety education into effect.