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| The Scottish Road Safety Campaign first issued a 'Workbook Diary' to every child in all primary schools in Scotland in 1995/6. This was followed by an up-dated version for 1997/98. The Diaries were designed to prompt regular road safety input into the primary curriculum. They are produced for 3 age bands and take the form of full colour booklets with a diary for each month accompanied by a road safety exercise. As part of the SRSC's on-going research and evaluation programme the Workbook Diaries were evaluated during 1997/98. The evaluation involved both a large-scale survey of primary schools and interviews with teachers and groups of pupils in 10 primary schools. |
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| Main Findings |
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From the survey:- 84% of schools received the Workbook Diaries for 1997-98
- 94% of schools receiving the Workbook Diaries used them
- 76% of schools regarded the Workbook Diaries as an important part of their Road Safety Education (RSE) programme
- Workbook Diaries were used on a regular, month by month basis in 43% of the schools
- Pupils were given the Workbook Diaries to use at home in 21% of the schools
- 21% of the schools made use of the activities alone while 44% used both the monthly diary and the accompanying activity
- Over 70% of teachers rated the Workbook Diaries as good or very good in terms of attractiveness, interest for pupils, relevance to road safety, the appropriateness of the activities and ease of use for teachers
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From the interviews:- teachers confirmed the survey findings that the Workbook Diaries were used either in project work or were used monthly and that they liked the content and presentation of the Workbook Diaries
- the Workbook Diaries were described as teacher-friendly, ready to use, and meeting the needs of teachers
- children thought that the Workbook Diaries taught about road safety in a fun way and they enjoyed the activities included
- they would rather have more puzzles than the diary pages
- children were not always able to understand the activity instructions
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| The Research |
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As part of their on-going research and evaluation programme examining the effectiveness of a range of campaigns and media, the Scottish Road Safety Campaign commissioned the Research and Evaluation Service of the Institute of Education at the University of Stirling to evaluate the use of Workbook Diaries made available to every child in primary schools in Scotland for the school year 1997/98. The Diaries are designed to prompt regular road safety input into the primary curriculum; they are produced for 3 age bands and take the form of full colour booklets with a diary for each month accompanied by a road safety exercise. As well as being used throughout the school year, pupils were to be encouraged to take them home for use over the school holidays. The use which schools make of the Diaries is however unknown; they may be used as intended, or in a more ad hoc way. They may be used as part of a whole class exercise or children may work on them individually. Previous research 1 on road safety education in primary schools in Scotland and the use of SRSC resources, found that only 5% of schools mentioned the Workbook Diaries specifically. The main aims of this study therefore were to: - determine the extent to which the Workbook Diaries were being used by Scottish primary schools;
- assess how the Workbook Diaries were being used by teachers and pupils;
- obtain the views of both teachers and pupils on the Diary format and content.
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| Methodology |
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| A two phase research design was adopted. This comprised a quantitative phase - a postal survey of a randomly selected sample of 50% of primary schools throughout Scotland - to establish the extent and type of use of the Workbook Diaries in schools. This was followed by a qualitative phase of semi-structured interviews with teachers and children in 10 primary schools, to explore in more depth attitudes towards and use of the Diaries. Additionally a whole population telephone survey of non-respondents in one former Region in Scotland was undertaken to enable a comparison of responses from initial non-respondents with those who had returned questionnaires. |
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| Results |
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| The Survey Findings |
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| The final response rate for the full questionnaire was 56% with a further 22% of the initial sample responding to an abbreviated questionnaire. For key questions therefore a total response rate of 78% was achieved. An analysis of the responses and non-responses indicated that while non-respondents may be slightly less likely to have received the Workbook Diaries and slightly less likely to consider them important in their RSE there was no difference between respondents and non-respondents in the use of the resource. On the basis of this analysis the findings of the full questionnaire survey can be generalised with confidence to all Scottish primary schools. The only caveat would be a possible slight over-estimate when considering figures for the receipt of the Workbook Diaries and the importance attached to them. |
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| Road Safety Education in Primary Schools |
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| Just over half of the schools indicated that they had a planned programme for RSE. The majority did not have a designated teacher with responsibility for RSE nor was it part of their school development plan. RSE was, however, acknowledged as part of the 5-14 curriculum by 95% of schools with all but 2 schools covering it as part of Environmental Studies. In a minority of schools RSE was also included in Science/Technology, Mathematics and English Language. |
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| Just under one quarter of schools considered RSE to be a high priority. Almost half felt it was important but that there were other issues of higher priority. The remainder (32 %) considered it to be a low priority. Schools which claimed that RSE was a high priority were more than twice as likely to have a planned programme for RSE and a teacher with designated responsibility for it. |
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| Figure 1 Proportions of schools using these resources in their Road Safety Education programmes |
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| Figure 1 above shows the proportion of schools using particular resources in their presentation of road safety. At 70% of schools pupils heard a talk by a Police or Road Safety Officer. The majority of schools approached RSE through project work. The SRSC Workbook Diaries were clearly the most widely used resource. |
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| Use of the Workbook Diaries |
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| The overwhelming majority of respondents reported that they had received the Diaries for 1997-98 and only 6% of those who received them did not use them. Over 70% of schools reported that the Workbook Diaries were a very important or fairly important part of their RSE programme. There appears to be a relationship between the priority which schools give to RSE and the importance which they attach to the Workbook Diaries. The greater the priority given to RSE the more important the Workbook Diaries are considered to be. |
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| The most frequent way in which the Workbook Diaries were used was on a regular month-by-month basis (43% of responses), see Figure 2. In half of the schools the Workbook Diaries were inspected or marked by the teacher. In a minority of schools (21%) Workbook Diaries were not used in class but given to pupils to take home for personal use. Where the Workbook Diaries were regarded as an important part of RSE they were more likely to be used on a month by month basis whereas, where they were considered unimportant they were more likely to be given to pupils to take home. At schools which rated the Workbook Diaries as important they were more likely to use both the monthly diary pages and the activities, while where less importance was attached to the resource, schools were more likely to use only the activity pages. |
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| Evaluation of the Workbook Diaries |
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| Respondents were asked to rate the Workbook Diaries on 5 characteristics: attractiveness; interest for pupils; relevance to road safety; appropriateness of the activities and ease of use for the teacher. Schools gave positive ratings on each of these characteristics. Over 80% of schools rated the Workbook Diaries as good or very good on the first 4 characteristics and over 70% as good or very good on ease of use for teacher. |
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| Figure 2 Modes of use of the Diaries |
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| Non-use of the Workbook Diaries |
| A minority of respondents (9%) indicated that they were not currently using the Workbook Diaries although two thirds of this group had previously used them. The most frequently given reasons for non-use centred on having insufficient time to use them or review the materials beforehand. None of the respondents attributed their non-use to the nature of the Workbook Diaries. |
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| The Interview Findings |
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| The Interviews with Teachers |
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| The interviews with teachers confirmed the survey findings on the school context for RSE. In most of the schools visited there was some time set aside annually for RSE and in some it was part of the whole school topic plan. Just how much time and in what way time was set aside varied from school to school. In other schools there were less regular timetabling arrangements with RSE being fitted in some years and not in others. Local resource arrangements were influential. The two schools which had had large, whole school RSE events had relied heavily on the support of the local Road Safety Officer. |
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| The Workbook Diaries were used either in a regular, approximately monthly, way or in a more concentrated way when road safety was the topic for project work or part of another class project. Despite the monthly format the resource was not always used on a monthly basis. Examples were found of teachers grouping the activities by content in an intensive block of RSE and of the Workbook Diaries being used as one of a range of options available for children to choose from during activity time. RSE was generally located in Environmental Studies and in Health and Safety work in particular. A minority of teachers adopted a more cross-curricular approach to RSE, involving, for example, art work, story writing. |
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| There was little evidence in the interviews of the use of curriculum resources other than the Workbook Diaries. Teachers appeared to have little knowledge of other resources and to be generally unclear about who supplied the Workbook Diaries. |
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| Most teachers interviewed made use only of the activities and not the diary pages, indeed a few teachers were puzzled by the inclusion of the diary pages. A number of teachers suggested that the monthly diary pages be replaced by more activities. Class work on the Workbook Diaries was much like other topic work, introduced and directed by the teacher who then corrected the children's work while moving around the class or reviewed the activities with the whole class. Only exceptionally was work taken in to be marked. |
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| The teachers interviewed considered the Workbook Diaries to be a positive contribution to RSE. They appreciated having a well-presented, colourful workbook for each child and felt that the resource could be readily used by teachers. The content was thought to be appropriate for the intended age range and teachers were comfortable with some activities being easier that others. Opinion was divided as to whether a teachers' handbook or notes to accompany the Workbook Diaries would be beneficial. However a reference resource and ideas for further project work would have been welcomed by some of the teachers. There was though, a concern that the ready accessibility of the current Workbook Diary should not be diminished. |
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| The Interviews with Children |
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| At every school, children were able to recall material from the Workbook Diaries, describing either things they had learned or activities completed. The children clearly located the Workbook Diaries in the fun part of school work both in terms of their feelings about doing the activities and their place in the timetable. The Workbook Diaries were made up of the type of puzzles which the children enjoyed and would choose to do. Word puzzles, colouring-in and cartoon-like presentations were particularly popular. Most children felt that the level of difficulty was about right. |
| While individual children liked using them, the diary pages were generally little used and children often suggested replacing them with more activities. The children were predominantly positive about the Workbook Diaries. If they were negative about anything it appeared to be about specific instructions which they did not understand, finding a particular activity difficult or expressing an individual dislike of writing or drawing. There was more general criticism of the paper on which the Workbook Diaries were printed with the children finding it difficult to write on in pencil. There were also indications that the children would welcome some differentiation across age groups both in the art work and amount of information given in the activities. |
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| Conclusions |
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| The evaluation found that the Workbook Diaries are a RSE resource which has high credibility with teachers and is attractive to children. The Workbook Diaries can be said to have an extensive customer base who however, show little 'brand' awareness of their provider. There appears to be little effective competition to the Workbook Diaries as a resource. |
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| Given the current levels of use and apparent satisfaction, it can be argued that room for improvement is limited perhaps to cosmetic changes. There is a possibility that changing the Workbook Diaries more fundamentally could have adverse effects on the level of use. Development might therefore be best directed towards improved distribution, ensuring that 100% of potential teacher-users receive the Workbook Diaries at a time which matches use of the resource in their school. For example if schools use the Workbook Diaries only in a period of intensive RSE in the first few weeks of the autumn term then they must be delivered before term begins. |
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| The attraction of the Workbook Diaries for teachers seems to derive largely from their 'low-tech' specification. They do not require special training or equipment for use, they are self-contained and there is a copy for each child. The maintenance of this ease of use for teachers and accessibility for children would have to be an important consideration in any future development of the resource. |
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| The SRSC should now consider whether the type and level of use of the Workbook Diaries found in this research meets their intentions. In making this judgement the SRSC may wish to consider the widespread use of the activities alone and the lack of regular monthly use of the diaries in many schools. If monthly repeated exposure to RSE is the goal of the SRSC (rather than a block of time once in a school year) what can be done to 'educate' or 'persuade' teachers of this? The SRSC may also wish to consider ways in which it can make teachers more aware of the organisation as the provider of a resource which they value and of other resources which they might wish to use. A move to annual production of the diaries would be likely to sustain their impact. However, this would have to be weighed against increased costs and the need to produce a book for each year group in primary school. |
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| 1 'A national survey of road safety education in Scottish primary schools', Platt C V, Pringle S M and Clayton A B, BITER, 1996 |
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| "Evaluation of Road Safety Workbook Diaries", the research report summarised in this Research Findings, is available priced £5.00. |
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Cheques should be made payable to The Stationery Office and addressed to:
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Edinburgh EH3 9AZ
Telephone: 0131-228 4181, or Fax: 0131-622 7017 The report can also be ordered online from:www.thestationeryoffice.co.uk |
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Further copies of this Research Findings may be obtained from:
The Scottish Office Central Research Unit
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Telephone: 0131-244 7560 |