Keep Encouraging Young Driver Safety (KEYS) Pilot Study: Increasing Parental Involvement in Teenage Driving through Driver Education

Hartos, Jessica; Huff, David; Carroll, James · 2009 · ROSA P / Montana. Dept. of Transportation. Research Programs

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Summary

The Keep Encouraging Young Driver Safety (KEYS) Pilot Study addressed the critical issue of teenage driving safety, which remains a leading cause of death and injury for adolescents aged 14 to 19. While Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) policies mandate supervised practice, they often fail to ensure thorough parental involvement. The study aimed to determine the feasibility of integrating parent-teen homework assignments into the Montana driver education curriculum to increase parental engagement, provide supervision tools, and reinforce safety expectations. The intervention was grounded in evidence-based strategies, specifically targeting parents programmatically, promoting high initial safety expectations, utilizing goal-oriented persuasion, and clearly defining parental roles based on the Hoover-Dempsey model of parent motivation. The research employed a three-phase pilot-testing design involving an interdisciplinary team of driver educators, policymakers, and researchers. First, the team developed five homework assignments covering topics such as vehicle safety, traffic laws, adverse conditions, and supervised practice schedules. Second, these assignments were tested with individual families recruited by instructors, who provided qualitative feedback and completed evaluation forms. Third, the assignments were piloted within driver education classes using two recruitment strategies: mandatory participation (or choosing another class) versus voluntary participation. Data were collected through qualitative feedback from instructors, teens, and parents, as well as quantitative measures of parental willingness to complete activities. Statistical analyses included frequency distributions, t-tests to compare recruitment strategies, and linear regression to assess the relationship between specific motivational tenets and parental willingness. The results indicated strong feasibility and positive reception. The overall recruitment rate for the classroom pilot was 81%. Crucially, families exposed to the mandatory recruitment strategy were 24 times more likely to participate than those in the voluntary group. Qualitative feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with limited negative comments primarily citing time constraints. Quantitatively, a minimum of 90% of parents reported at least “medium” willingness to complete all activities. Regression analyses revealed that parental willingness was highly correlated with exposure to the tenets of goal-oriented persuasion and parent motivation embedded in the assignments, such as clear role definition and perceived self-efficacy. The study concludes that integrating parent-teen homework into driver education is a viable method for increasing parental involvement in teen driving safety. The findings suggest that parents are willing to engage in these structured activities when their roles are clearly defined and they are motivated through persuasive, goal-oriented messaging. The authors recommend proceeding to a broader efficacy trial to determine whether this intervention leads to improved short-term and prospective outcomes in safe teen driving behavior. This approach offers a practical solution to bridge the gap between GDL mandates and actual parental supervision, potentially reducing teen driving risks through enhanced family engagement.

Key finding

Parents exposed to homework assignments incorporating goal-oriented persuasion and parent motivation tenets demonstrated high willingness to complete activities, and mandatory recruitment strategies yielded significantly higher participation rates than voluntary ones.

Methodology

mixed_methods

Provenance

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Topics

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• parental management
• driver education effectiveness
• passenger effects
• learner drivers

Information type

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• Applied Guidance: countermeasure evaluation