Interactive education-preventive programme as efficient prevention means for contact of children and dogs

Marie Chlopčíková
Training canistherapeutical Association Hafík, Třeboň, Czech Republic

Korespondenční autor: Marie Chlopčíková (marie.chlopcikova@seznam.cz)

ISSN 1804-7181 (On-line)

Full verze:

Submitted:14. 9. 2014
Accepted: 20. 10. 2014
Published online: 26. 6. 2015

Summary

programme that has demonstrated improved children’s know­ledge in the area of basic rules of safe contact with dogs. The goal of the quantitative study consisted in comparing, with the help of pilot and feedback questionnaires, children’s know­ledge in the area of responsible and safe approach to dogs before and after passing the interactive educational prevention programme. The questions of the pilot questionnaire mapped the basic children’s know­ledge and experience with regard to their approach to dogs. The feedback questionnaire assessed purposefully the children’s know­ledge acquired after passing the programme. The research was focused on the level of improvement of children’s know­ledge on safe approach to dogs. The research file consisted of elementary school pupils of South Bohemian region aged 8–12 years. The age of the respondents was limited till the period of “medium school age”, described by professor Matějček as a period of essential changes in children’s approach to dogs, that can potentially give rise to conflict situations. Thanks to high-quality work of the research team, to the help of teachers and last but not least to cooperation of pupils, the data of 583 interviewed children could be processed in the end. To provide clear arranged evaluation of the study results, the author used percentage representation and the independence test in contingency tables, so called Pearson’s chi squared test. The results of compared questions from the pilot and the feedback questionnaires showed different numbers of correct answers in percentage assessment. Statistic dependence of the answers was demonstrated in 12 compared questions of the pilot and the feedback questionnaires. The pupils’ knowledge is different after passing the interactive educationpreventive programme. All compared questions showed an increased rate of choice of correct answer. It is therefore possible to confirm the improved level of pupils’ knowledge of rules of safe contact with a dog after passing the interactive educational prevention programme. Preventive activity helps the children clarify potential risks of the contact and, through unique personal experience, to strengthen the rules of safe approach to dogs. The paper presents the results of the research study that compares knowledge of elementary school pupils before and after passing the new preventive programme in order to confirm or disprove its efficiency on the target population – children. The interactive education-preventive programme for children was created under support of the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic, the Institute of Health and Social Work of the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice and Hafík, Training Dog Therapy Association.

Keywords: child; dog; education; preventive programme; efficiency

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