The Tufty Club was originated in 1961 by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), as a national organisation aimed at providing pre-school children with some home, water and road safety education. In 1971 an enquiry into the road safety aspects of the Tufty Club was begun at the laboratory, with the full support of RoSPA. This report summarises the main findings of the enquiry which included experiments on the effectiveness of Tufty materials , comparisons between members and non- members of the Tufty club and opinions on aspects of the Tufty Club from a variety of respondent groups involved with teaching children road safety. In general, opinions on Tufty and Tufty materials were favourable. The major criticisms were on aspects of writing style in Tufty book 1. Using a model road for assessment of knowledge, Tufty stories were shown to be effective for teaching individual children but not for teaching groups. This has particular implications for local Tufty clubs. Tufty was well liked and recognised by all the children involved in the enquiry and they appeared to have no difficulty in relating the fantasy world of Tufty to "real-life" situations. (Author/publisher)
Abstract