From the Division of Pediatric Surgery (H.A., R.V.B., V.M., P.R., J.S.U.), Children's Hospital Los Angeles; Department of Surgery (M.M.K.), San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center; University of California, San Francisco Medicine (M.M.K.), University of Southern California; and Keck School of Medicine (R.V.B, J.S.U.), University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California.
J Trauma Acute Care Surg. 2014 May;76(5):1317-21. doi: 10.1097/TA.0000000000000217.
Injury is the number one cause of death and disability in children in the United States and an increasingly important public health problem globally. While prevention of injuries is an important goal, prevention efforts are currently fragmented, poorly funded, and rarely studied. Among school-aged children, pedestrian crashes are a major mechanism of injury. We hypothesized that we could develop a game-based educational tool that would be effective in teaching elementary school children the principles of pedestrian safety.
Between November 2011 and June 2013, second- and third-grade children in Los Angeles Unified School District were randomly assigned to play a unique interactive video game (Ace's Adventure) about pedestrian safety or to a traditional didactic session about pedestrian safety. A pretest and posttest were administered to the study participants. Afterward, study participants were observed for appropriate pedestrian behavior on a simulated street set called Street Smarts. All statistical analyses were performed using SAS version 9.2.
A total of 348 study participants took the pretest and posttest. There were 180 who were randomized to the didactic and 168 who were randomized to the video game. The didactic group demonstrated a higher mean score increase (1.01, p < 0.0001) as compared with the video game group (0.44, p < 0.0001). However, observation of study participants revealed that participants who played the video game, as compared with the didactic group, more frequently exhibited appropriate behavior during the following: exiting a parked car (p = 0.01), signaling to a car that was backing up (p = 0.01), signaling to a stopped car (p = 0.0002), and crossing the street (p = 0.01).
Students who played the educational video game about pedestrian safety performed similarly to those who attended a more traditional and labor-intensive didactic learning. Innovative educational methods, such as game playing, could significantly change our approach to injury prevention and have the potential to decrease the burden of injury among children worldwide.
在美国，伤害是儿童死亡和残疾的首要原因，也是全球日益严重的公共卫生问题。预防伤害是一个重要目标，但目前预防工作分散、资金不足且很少得到研究。在学龄儿童中，行人碰撞是主要的受伤机制。我们假设可以开发一种基于游戏的教育工具，用于有效教授小学生行人安全原则。
在 2011 年 11 月至 2013 年 6 月期间，洛杉矶联合学区的二、三年级儿童被随机分配玩一种独特的行人安全互动视频游戏（Ace's Adventure）或传统的行人安全教学课程。对研究参与者进行了预测试和后测试。之后，在名为“街头智慧”的模拟街道场景中观察研究参与者的适当行人行为。所有统计分析均使用 SAS 版本 9.2 进行。
共有 348 名研究参与者进行了预测试和后测试。其中 180 人被随机分配到教学组，168 人被随机分配到视频游戏组。教学组的平均得分增加（1.01，p < 0.0001）高于视频游戏组（0.44，p < 0.0001）。然而，观察研究参与者发现，与教学组相比，玩视频游戏的参与者在以下方面更频繁地表现出适当的行为：从停驶的汽车中出来（p = 0.01）、向倒车的汽车发出信号（p = 0.01）、向停驶的汽车发出信号（p = 0.0002）和过马路（p = 0.01）。
玩行人安全教育视频游戏的学生与参加更传统和劳动密集型教学课程的学生表现相似。创新的教育方法，如玩游戏，可以显著改变我们预防伤害的方法，并有可能降低全球儿童的伤害负担。
