Teaching children fire safety skills

Abstract

This investigation examined the effectiveness of three training procedures (elaborative rehearsal, rehearsal-plus, and behavioral rehearsal) in producing children's acquisition and maintenance of fire safety skills, as well as knowledge of fire safety skills. In addition, reduction of fire-related fears was targeted. Fifty-two randomly assigned second- and third-grade children served as subjects. The children were assessed before, immediately following, and three months after their training. The three training groups demonstrated significantly greater behavioral performance gains than an untrained control group at post-test. However, treatment gains did not persist at follow-up. Regarding knowledge, the elaborative rehearsal group reported significantly more knowledge of skills than rehearsal-plus, behavioral rehearsal, and untrained control groups at post-test. At follow-up, elaborative rehearsal and rehearsal-plus groups reported significantly more knowledge of skills than behavioral rehearsal and untrained control groups. Finally, no differences were found among groups concerning fear at post-test and follow-up.