# Virtual Reality by Mobile Phone: Improving Child Pedestrian Safety

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM · 2021 · $452,534

## Abstract

Virtual Reality by Mobile Phone: Improving Child Pedestrian Safety
Pedestrian injuries are a leading cause of pediatric injury. Effective, practical, and cost-efficient empirically-
based and theoretically-driven behavioral interventions to teach young children street-crossing skills are
needed. Our laboratory has explored virtual reality (VR) as a means to teach child pedestrian safety skills for
several reasons, including: (a) it offers children repeated unsupervised practice in pedestrian crossings without
risk of injury, (b) it provides automated feedback to children on crossing success or failure, (c) it can be tailored
to child skill levels: (d) it offers an appealing and fun training environment, and (e) most recently given
technological advances, it offers potential for broad dissemination using mobile phone technology. Previous
work indicated VR was an effective pedestrian safety training tool. The present proposal extends previous
findings in two critical ways. First, it will evaluate delivery of a pedestrian VR using a mobile phone and the
Google Cardboard platform, technology released in 2014 that enables a standard mobile phone to be used as
an immersive virtual reality delivery system. Second, it will overcome the limitation of previous research
suggesting children learned some pedestrian skills after six 30-minute training sessions in a VR but did not yet
master adult-level pedestrian skills. We will implement a randomized non-inferiority trial with two equal-sized
groups of children ages 7-8 (total N = 498). All participants will complete baseline, post-intervention, and 6-
month follow-up assessments of pedestrian safety and up to twenty-five 30-minute pedestrian safety training
trials until they reach adult levels of functioning. Half the children will be randomly assigned to train in Google
Cardboard and the other half in an existing semi-immersive laboratory VR. Primary outcomes will be assessed
using ANCOVA models.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10151459
- **Project number:** 5R01HD088415-05
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM
- **Principal Investigator:** DAVID C SCHWEBEL
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $452,534
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-07-15 → 2023-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10151459

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10151459, Virtual Reality by Mobile Phone: Improving Child Pedestrian Safety (5R01HD088415-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10151459. Licensed CC0.

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