SBIR/STTR Award attributes
ABSTRACT Car crashes are the leading cause of death among adolescents and young adults Impaired driving including distracted drugged and drunk driving is a common cause of car crashes and an important public health and safety issue Drugged driving especially is a critical and growing problem particularly with the availability and growing use of marijuana and prevention materials are lacking From the literature and informed by the Integrated Behavioral Model we know that attitudes such as the perceived dangerousness and outcome expectancies of impaired driving perceived social norms beliefs about personal agency to find alternatives to impaired driving and the skills to identify and implement such alternatives are potential drivers of this behavior The current Phase I project will develop an interactive online training and online immersive skill building degree video experience focused on preventing drugged driving to be later expanded to encompass distracted and drunk driving We will include high school and college age drivers our target audience at all stages of the development process by forming a Young Driver Advisory Council that will provide feedback on components such as the content look and feel of the training and relatable scenarios for the degree video experience To develop the online training we will develop content to target the key attitudes perceived norms personal agency beliefs and skills from the literature shown to affect this behavior using instructional science and health behavior change principles To develop the degree video experience designed to be a more engaging and realistic way to practice skills than classroom role play exercises we will write scripts of a scenario with decision points for users to practice planning alternatives to drugged driving and communication skills to implement such alternatives An experienced production company will produce the degree video and interactive user interface for young drivers to access on their computer or smartphone This degree interactive experience can be later developed into an application for a virtual reality headset or to work with augmented reality components as such technologies become more widely used and accessible to our audience We will test both the online training and degree experience for usability make improvements and then test them for feasibility by measuring changes in attitudes perceived social norms personal agency and skills pre and post training and the degree experience This project will produce a tested theory driven web based drugged driving prevention program and assess the feasibility of using an innovative new technology a degree interactive experience to teach skills such as planning and communication to prevent drugged driving PROJECT NARRATIVE Impaired driving particularly drugged driving is a critical and growing issue among young drivers and an issue for which prevention materials are needed The current Phase I project will develop an online training and a web based immersive skill building degree video experience for high school and college age drivers using a theory driven approach to target attitudes beliefs and skills to prevent drugged driving This project will result in the development of a tested web based training and assess the feasibility of an innovative engaging new technology in the degree interactive experience to teach behavioral skills
