Safe Routes to School Youth Voices

• Main Author: Wright, Patricia Ann
• Other Authors: Henry, Lisa
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: University of North Texas 2019
• Subjects: Safe Routes to School; Middle School Students; Active Transportation; Transportation to School
• Online Access: https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1538721/

Many communities are promoting physical activity and active transportation as ways to combat childhood obesity and change sedentary lifestyles of school-age children. Safe Routes to School Youth Voices is a mixed methods approach to understanding the experiences and perceptions of middle school students surrounding the use of active transportation. Student experiences are explored both independently and in comparison to parental perspectives of barriers to actives transportation. Data were collected in the form of parent surveys, observations, student interviews, and student focus groups. This study aims to answer the following primary research questions: (1) What are the conditions experienced along the route? (2) What are the students' perceptions of barriers to active transportation? (3) What are the compensation practices that students take to overcome barriers? and (4) How do the students' perceptions compare with their parents? Interviews and focus groups were transcribed and coded using in-vivo, descriptive, structural and pattern methods. Primary themes which emerged include how conditions of walking to school, personal safety, compensation practices, and systematic barriers all affect the perceptions of active transportation of the student. Findings highlight the difficulties many students face when considering active transportation, and discuss the inconsistencies between student experience, parental perceptions, and intervention goals.