Parent and Student Attitudes and Behaviors

Many reviews of ATS and SRTS interventions identify parental and student attitudes to have strong correlations with behavior, and often cite parental attitudes as having a greater impact on ATS adoption than the built environment. Key parental attitudes for ATS adoption include higher perceptions of social control (McDonald et al. 2010,) positive impressions of the social outcomes of ATS (King, Klezczewska et al. 2020, Nikitas et al. 2019,) and perception of safety in numbers when children travel in groups (Kang & Diao 2022, Klezczewska et al. 2020.) One study found that when parents reported high levels of social control, 37% walked or biked to school, compared with 24% of children whose parents reported low or neutral levels (McDonald et al. 2010.)

In addition, parents who use active transportation for trips other than to school, such as biking to neighborhood locations, are more likely to support ATS (Stewert et al. 2012,) while households that own and heavily use private cars are less likely to use ATS (Lu et al. 2014, Lucken et al. 2018.) Perceiving ATS as convenient plays a large role as well, particularly from a time and effort standpoint, including organizing and amount of time it takes the student to commute to/from school (Kang & Diao 2022, Kweon et al. 2023, Lu et al. 2014, So 2023.) This is compounded by schedule constraints, which play a significant role in preventing ATS (Kang & Diao 2022.)

For students, there is ample literature describing the health and academic benefits of ATS. Participation in physical activity, especially aerobic exercise, is linked with improved health (Klezczewska et al. 2020,) executive function, focus, working memory and ADHD symptoms (Bidzan-Bluma & Lipowska 2018, Mehren et al. 2020,) mental health (Klezczewska et al. 2020, McDonald et al. 2015,) and increased energy (Alder 2022.) Academic improvement is associated with ATS, notably in girls (Bidzan-Bluma & Lipowska 2018, McDonald et al. 2015.)