Applying All Steps to a Safe Cycling Activity

We start the development of a new activity with Step 1. However, ensure to have reviewed the “Before You Start” section of the LEARN! Manual.

The focus of this example is on the development of a small-scale activity for a local school, as this allows for the application of the manual’s steps to be demonstrated more clearly. As most of the other examples in the LEARN! Manual show the application of the steps to activities of a larger scale, this example demonstrates that the manual’s steps can also be applied to small-scale activities.

Let us assume that, according to our general strategy, the national goal is that at least 80% of pupils should walk or cycle to school, and that this should happen without any increase in collisions and injuries. The schools furthermore have a responsibility to teach the pupils how to ride their bicycle safely, and in our example situation, the school has given the basic bicycle training in Grade 4 (9 and 10 year olds), and all pupils passed the test.

However, the teachers have now seen that pupils in Grade 6 (11 and 12 year olds) are being persuaded by their peers to ride their bicycles in places where this is not permitted or where this is especially risky, that they carry more people on their bicycles than is permitted, and that some minor incidents have occurred. Moreover, many of the pupils do not use their helmets.

The school wishes to address this situation and in order to develop an activity, we need to look more closely into the problem and gather more information to include in the strategy for the activity. We start with interviews and simple tests to find out what kind of knowledge the pupils have about cycling, and what they know about the challenges and common causes of incidents. As the teachers indicated that they had the impression that peer pressure can be an important influence, we also want to find out about the impact of social relationships. We should therefore ask ourselves whether there is anyone in the target group who merits special attention, because of their influence on other members of the group.

When addressing the safe use of bicycles, we should not choose an excessively broad scope. As the activity should not provide too many messages, we must make some choices. For this example, we decide not to talk about using helmets, but focus on understanding risk and the need to be attentive to one’s surroundings on the road. Based on the information gathered in Step 1, we are aware that the pupils know what is right, so we want to strengthen their ability and willingness to behave in a safe way. The effect of the activity should therefore be seen in improving the actual behaviour, and this is therefore specified as the objective of the activity.

In order to find out whether the activity improves the actual behaviour, we also need to think about the evaluation design at this stage. A simple formula for an outcome evaluation would be to investigate whether pupils who have received training have changed their behaviour towards acting more safely in traffic compared with another group that has not received the same training.

For our example, let us assume that two or more schools have faced the same safety issue. We decide that we will implement the activity at School A, but not at School B, allowing us after the activity to see whether receiving the activity leads to safer cycling. When selecting the schools, we make sure that they are alike with regard to the type of pupils (e.g. socio-economic background, what they have been educated in so far, etc).

In order to ascertain how the pupils use their bicycles before having received the activity, we conduct the baseline measurement. As we have no extra budget for hiring an external body specialising in this, we have to do the work ourselves. In this example, we observe and survey both schools at the beginning of May:

From our problem analysis in Step 1, we know that some pupils ride their bicycle all the time, while others do it more rarely. As the degree of motivation and commitment varies considerably, we need to start with a shared experience and a practical assignment to include everybody. Bad habits in particular are a factor that need consideration. We know from literature (and previous experiences) that changing bad habits is often more difficult than learning new ones. It is thus important to establish some reward systems and pay special attention to the least disciplined pupils.

For our activity, our focus will be on educational measures. We could, however, have expanded the activity by combining it with several measures outside education, such as letting the pupils contact the local authorities to improve the maintenance and lighting of bicycle paths, or establish safer road crossings.

We then design the activity in line with the 5E model.

Engage: How can we engage the pupils?

Explore: What kinds of activities might contribute towards the pupils finding their own solutions to the issues?

Explain:

Elaborate: An extension of perspective might be to examine framework factors, for example the following aspects that we know about typical bicycle incidents:

Evaluate: This is a part of the learning process.

Based on our earlier considerations as well as the activity’s design, we finalise our evaluation plan. We also already start thinking about the plans for production and implementation.

Based on the design, we create mock-ups of our envisaged activity, so we can test whether our activity achieves the desired changes. The school in our example is a large one, and we therefore test the teacher’s guide as well as the activity in one class in a focus group setting. The feedback received from the teacher reveals that the teacher’s guide can be misunderstood, and through the focus group we identify new factors that contribute to unsafe behaviour. Following the pre-test, we revisit the earlier steps and adjust the activity and teacher’s guide accordingly.

Given that the example concerns a small-scale activity at a local school, we involve the children in the creation of the materials necessary for the activity (as a method for engagement). Should we wish to implement the activity at a lot more schools later on, we should consider at that point what the best way of producing the material would be.

Depending on our analysis in the first steps and our experience so far, we decide what the communications strategy should contain. First and foremost, this project is a process influencing attitudes and willingness to do the right things, so it is important that the parents are also following up on the issues.

If the pupils have acquired new knowledge regarding any improvements in the municipality where they cycle and have suggestions on what can be done, we could also contact the municipal authorities and present the results.

In line with our evaluation design, we make sure that we implement the activity in School A, but not in School B.

In Step 2 we conducted the baseline measurement at both schools in early May, and as part of Step 7 we implemented our ‘Safe Bicycle Use’ programme at School A later in May. At School B, no activity related to safer cycling was done during the same period.

In order to find out whether our activity had an effect, we repeat the measurements (both the observations and the questionnaire we did in Step 2) at both schools – for example in mid-June, and perhaps again at the start of the new school year in August.

If we find that the pupils at School A have positively changed their behaviour towards traffic safety and that the behaviour of the pupils at School B has remained largely unchanged (as measured through both observations and the questionnaire), we can conclude that the ‘Safe Bicycle Use’ programme has very likely had a positive effect.

As we only implemented the activity in one school, based on the good results we can only state that the activity is likely to have had a positive effect. In order to establish with more certainty whether the programme has positive effects, we would need to implement and evaluate the programme in more schools.

In addition to measuring outcomes, we should also evaluate the process, including the scope and content of ‘Safe Bicycle Use’ at School A, whether the teachers and pupils (or parents, when included) felt that the training worked, whether there were aspects of the activity that did not work well, etc. Another option here is to supplement the questionnaire that was given to pupils in School A in the post-activity period with questions on their opinions and perceptions of the training.

In our example, the evaluation showed that the activity has probably had an effect, and that it was appreciated by both teachers and pupils. Had the results been different, we should have revised the activity accordingly, or maybe even stopped providing the activity altogether and developed a new one.

Based on the development and evaluation of the activity, particularly the lessons learned, we draft a final report.

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