مهندسی عمران شریف (May 2018)
IMPACT OF PARENTS' ATTITUDES ON THEIR TENDENCY TOWARDS THEIR CHILDREN WALKING TO SCHOOL
Abstract
Educational travel, due to the impact on health, safety, security, achievement, and personality of the child, forms an important part of children's daily activities. Such trips are also related with other social problems such as traffic congestion, consumption of non-renewable resources, and the environmental pollutions. According to international studies and despite a clear advantage of the active transportation (walking and cycling), the share of active transport of educational purposes has been decreasing. Recent studies have suggested that, in addition to demographic and traditional characteristics (such as social and environmental variables), parents' attitudes towards walking and safety may have a key role in children mode in school trips. For the lack of studies assessing safety and walking attitude, this study aims to seek the role of parental attitudes toward walking and safety on the preferences of using walking as a mode in school trips. 820 questionnaires were designed and distributed among 28 public and private elementary schools, both boys and girls in Mashhad in mid-February 2014. 625 fully completed questionnaires were returned. Using factor analyses (exploratory and confirmatory) and structural equation modeling, assessment of the psychological and socioeconomic variables was conducted. Results suggest that there is a strong positive relationship between parental attitudes towards walking and walking as a preferred mode in their children daily school trips $(P .05)$. Also, results show that the number of vehicles the household owns, the father and mother driving license status, mothers' educational status, and average annual household income were all recognized to be statistically significant in the mode type preferred for the daily educational students trips $(P < .001)$, although the coefficients of these variables were small. Finally, it is worth noting that the findings of this research can be useful in the planning of schools to help a sustainable transport.
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