The paper reports findings from a research project designed to investigate the development of pedestrian skills in children aged 4-11. Specially, the extent to which this development is related to individual differences in exposure to road traffic, metacognition, visual search skills and impulsivity is explored. Over and above the effects of age, the metacognitive processes of awareness and control of cognitive strategies emerge as the most significant factors. Impulsivity and exhaustiveness of visual search are also significant among particular age groups. These findings explain some of the shortcomings of narrowly knowledge-based road safety training and suggest that a more problem-solving type of approach which makes the strategies used by adult pedestrians explicit through talk and discussion is likely to be more effective. (A)
Samenvatting