Using Virtual Reality to Train Children in Pedestrian Safety

December 1, 2014 updated by: David Schwebel, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Pedestrian injuries are among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in American children ages 7-8, but existing behavior-oriented interventions achieve only modest success. One limitation to existing interventions is that they fail to provide children with the repeated practice needed to develop the complex perceptual and cognitive skills required for safe pedestrian activity.

Virtual reality (VR) offers a highly promising technique to train children in pedestrian safety skills. VR permits repeated unsupervised practice without risk of injury; automated feedback to children on success or failure in crossings; adjustment of traffic density and speed to match children's skill level; and an appealing and fun environment for training. The proposed research is designed to test the efficacy of virtual reality as a tool to train child pedestrians in safe street-crossing behavior.

A randomized controlled trial will be conducted with four equal-sized groups of children ages 7-8 (total N = 240). One group will receive training in an interactive and immersive virtual pedestrian environment. The virtual environment, already developed, has been demonstrated to have face, construct, and convergent validity. The second group will receive pedestrian safety training via video and computer strategies that are most widely used in American schools today. The third group will receive what is judged to be the most efficacious treatment currently available, individualized behavioral training at streetside locations. The fourth and final group will serve as a no-contact control group. All participants in all groups will be exposed to a range of field- and laboratory-based measures of pedestrian skill during baseline and post-intervention visits, as well as during a six-month follow-up assessment. Primary analyses will be conducted through linear mixed models designed to test change over time in the four intervention groups. We hypothesize all children in active learning groups will increase pedestrian safety skills, but the largest increase will be among children in the virtual reality group.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

240

Phase

  • Phase 3

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Alabama
      • Birmingham, Alabama, United States, 35294
        • UAB Youth Safety Lab, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

7 years to 8 years (Child)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • 7 and 8 year old children living in Birmingham, Alabama, area

Exclusion Criteria:

  • family plans to move within 6 months of recruitment
  • visual or perceptual impairment (e.g., blindness) that are uncorrected and would prevent valid participation in protocol
  • physical impairment (e.g., use of wheelchair) that would prevent valid participation in protocol
  • cognitive impairment (e.g., moderate mental retardation) that would prevent valid participation in protocol

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: virtual reality
street-crossing training in a virtual pedestrian environment
Device: virtual pedestrian environment
a computer-driven virtual pedestrian environment
Active Comparator: computer and video
exposure to training in pedestrian safety via computer software, internet games, and television videos
Device: computer and video
various computer-based and video-based programs such as Otto the Auto and WalkSafe
Active Comparator: streetside training
one-on-one training in street-crossing skills by an adult, at a streetside location
Behavioral: streetside training
one-on-one training by an adult with the child at streetside locations, to teach children street-crossing skills
No Intervention: no-contact control
no-contact control group.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Street-crossing Ability
Time Frame: post-training and again 6 months later
average count of hits/close calls per participant in virtual environment, out of 30 crossings
post-training and again 6 months later

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Collaborators

National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

October 1, 2009

Primary Completion (Actual)

May 1, 2012

Study Completion (Actual)

March 1, 2014

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

February 24, 2009

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

February 24, 2009

First Posted (Estimate)

February 25, 2009

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

December 16, 2014

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 1, 2014

Last Verified

December 1, 2014

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • F080715010
  • R01HD058573-01A1 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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