Safety competence promotion in secondary education – A case of the Finnish NouHätä! Programme

TL;DR

This study evaluates a long-running Finnish safety education program for secondary students to understand what factors best improve their safety skills.

Contribution

The study systematically evaluates the NouHätä! Programme and identifies factors that influence students' safety competence.

Findings

Collaboration between teachers and safety experts leads to better learning outcomes.

Practical training significantly improves students' safety competence.

Background factors like school success and knowledge sources affect safety competence levels.

Abstract

The Nouhätä! safety education programme has been organised in secondary schools in Finland for over 25 years. However, to date, it has not been systematically evaluated. The purpose of this quantitative survey is to provide information about good practices, benefits and limitations of the NouHätä! Programme; this has been done by answering the research question what variables explain pupils' safety competence after participating in a NouHätä! safety education programme? The results show that the best learning outcomes in safety education are achieved when training is organised in collaboration with teachers and safety experts. Practical training also seems to have a significant impact on the safety competence of pupils. The results suggest that background variables like school success and the sources of safety knowledge affect the level of pupils' safety competence. The results of the study can be used to develop the programme and other safety education programmes for children and young people.

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