| The stated purpose of the present investigation was to examine the influence of risk perception training and team building training on the cognitive, attitudinal, behavioral and risk-taking (attitudinal and behavioral) test scores of students participating in a youth traffic safety education program. Specifically, the study assessed the effects of risk perception training and team building training for middle school students on their test scores regarding four dependent (outcome) variables of interest---(1) change in traffic safety knowledge, (2) change in attitude towards traffic safety issues, (3) change in behavior and behavioral intention regarding traffic safety issues, and (4) change in risk taking (attitudes and behaviors) towards traffic safety issues. The assumption was made in this study that risk perception training would cause an increase from pretest to posttest scores in the cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral variables, and a decrease in the risk-taking (attitudinal and behavioral) variable in the study, and that these increases and decreases would be significantly greater than any increases or decreases due to team building training.; Participants (N=361) were 19 classes of seventh- and eighth-grade students instructed by eight teachers representing five schools from two public school districts in two counties of a specific region in a southeastern state. A randomized block, 2 x 2 Factorial Design in a Repeated Latin Square Design was chosen for this study with pairs of classrooms defining the blocks. Pairs of similar classrooms were created and randomly assigned to either risk perception training or team building training in order to remove teacher effect. Furthermore, these random assignments were made to cancel out the effects of a leadership training administered to the teachers. Alpha was set at .05.; Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) followed by t-tests among Least Squares Means (LSMEANS) analysis for effect method was utilized in this study. Descriptive statistics were utilized to analyze the demographic data for grade level and gender characteristics, as well as the number of students assigned to the various experimental treatments. Increases in cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral variables, and a decrease in the risk-taking (attitudinal and behavioral) variable within each treatment were defined as the difference in pretest and posttest scores and these increases and decreases were tested and compared.; The results indicate sufficient evidence that the increase in test scores on the attitudinal dependent variable for risk perception training was significantly greater than the increase in team building training. Furthermore, it is to be noted that all four dependent (outcome) variables regarding risk perception training showed consistently a greater statistically significant change from pretests to posttests (actual mean gains) than was indicated in the test scores regarding the team building training.; The results of this study and the two post hoc analyses provide enough evidence to warrant further investigation. Recommendations for further research are included. |
