Teaching children to cross safely: A full-immersive virtual reality training method for young pedestrians

As road crashes are the leading cause of mortality among children, effective road safety education is vital. This study aims to evaluate an innovative educational method using fully immersive Virtual Reality (VR) technology to teach children how to cross the road safely and explores potential differences in learning outcomes based on gender. The proposed training system integrates individual VR sessions with collective VR-supported lessons. The experiment involved 74 participants (41 females, age range 9–11), divided into control and treated groups. All participants underwent two full-immersive VR tests, with a two-week interval, during which they faced 4 pedestrian crossing scenarios, including both signalized and unsignalized crossings. The treated group, after one week from the first VR test, took part in a VR-supported lesson which illustrated the most common errors and the rules of good pedestrian behavior. Participants from the treated group showed significant improvements in various behaviors: reduced red traffic light violations, less running while crossing, and better judgment of vehicular gaps when crossing. No significant gender-based differences in learning outcomes were directly linked to the treatment, except for the running behavior. The proposed method, designed to be a scalable solution that can be easily implemented in school settings, can effectively train children in road safety, leading to significant improvements in crossing behavior regardless of gender.