Coalition Surveys Effectiveness of Texas SuperCyclist Curriculum

Texas Bicycle Coalition is gathering data from teachers trained in the Texas SuperCyclist Curriculum to learn how the program has been disseminated into Texas elementary schools. Since 1996, at least 2,845 teachers have been trained. If you are teacher who has been trained in the Texas SuperCyclist Curriculum, please respond to the brief 8-question survey at www.BikeTexas.org/teachersurvey and receive up to 500 free colored bookmarks for your classroom. Feedback from this survey provides the Coalition information on how to improve the curriculum to create the best fit for the classroom.

Preliminary results from the survey, based upon the sample size of 53 teachers, indicate that approximately 37 percent of those teachers trained implement the program. Although this percentage seems small, the impact is huge, with 9,498 students being taught the Texas SuperCyclist Curriculum. If these numbers are extrapolated to the Coalition’s 2,845 trained teachers, a conservative estimate of a 37 percent teaching rate would mean that 509,824 elementary school students have been taught the Texas SuperCyclist Curriculum across the state.

Even more promising is the fact that 23 teachers indicated that they taught some portion of information learned in our six-hour training although they did not use the bicycle safety curriculum. This means that 42 teachers out of the 53 respondents have incorporated some piece of information learned from Texas Bicycle Coalition’s teacher trainings into their classroom.

Other feedback gleaned from the surveys indicates that children, on average, are most often active for 10 to 15 minutes during a SuperCyclist lesson. More often than not, the teacher uses the included bicycle video. Out of the 15 lessons, teachers are most likely to implement the five-lesson quick course as an abbreviated version due to lack of time.

In terms of the bicycle safety portion, out of the 40 teachers that responded to the question, six teachers used virtual bicycles (i.e. mock handlebars), 12 teachers had students bring in their own bicycles, six teachers were able to access school bicycles and 16 teachers used no form of bicycle. This information helps the Coalition continue to modify the Texas SuperCyclist Curriculum. The goals of the education are two pronged: children begin to bicycle more often, leading to multiple health benefits, and children learn what is necessary to be as safe as possible on the bicycle.

Texas Bicycle Coalition has been training teachers on our 15-lesson bicycle education curriculum, known as Texas SuperCyclist Curriculum, since 1996. Funded by the Texas Department of Transportation, and recently by the U.S. Department of Education, Carol M. White Physical Education Program, the Coalition reaches fourth and fifth grade students indirectly throughout the state by providing tools to physical education teachers on bicycle and pedestrian safety. An added benefit to the program is that physical activity is incorporated into the lesson plans to keep the children moving in the classroom and reduce the incidence of childhood obesity.

If you are interested in a more detailed preliminary report, please contact Evaluation Director Lisa Groesz, at 512-476-7433.