NWT RESEARCH DATABASE

Regions: Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Gwich'in Settlement Area

Tags: social sciences, youth, travel safety

Objective(s): To better understand boating-related behaviours, attitudes, and levels awareness of boating safety, as well as to increase training and education opportunities, among residents of the Inuvialuit Settlement Region.

Project Description: This licence has been issued for the scientific research application No.4627. The purpose of this project is to better understand boating-related behaviours, attitudes, and levels awareness of boating safety, as well as to increase training and education opportunities, among residents of the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. The research questions are as follows: 1) what are boating behaviours and attitudes in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, NWT? and 2) what equipment is needed to promote boating safety in the region? The objectives are as follows: 1) reduction in the loss of life, injuries, and property damage due to boating incidents in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, by encouraging safe boating practices and compliance with regulations through education, awareness, and information; and, 2) to produce and circulate materials that improve and promote boating safety in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. For the proposal and in keeping with research best practices with Indigenous communities, the research team will be using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) methodology to both develop the intervention and to evaluate it. Here, the team will focus on evaluation. There are numerous, well-documented strengths to adopting a CBPR methodology for evaluation. Those who use this methodology try to ensure that research is more responsive to community members’ priorities by creating a more balanced exchange than other types of methodologies for knowledge production and social action in communities. While the research team are open to other forms of investigation, the team believe that the research methods will enable the best possible evaluation data to emerge: pre/post Likert scales, focus groups, a boating safety inventory, and structured observation. Likert scales are five-point bipolar responses with which many people are familiar. They are helpful in identifying knowledge and attitude changes when given pre/post intervention. The boating safety courses can be considered an intervention, and thus Likert scales will be administered before and after these courses to see the degree to which training was able to change participants’ knowledge and attitudes (i.e., the efficacy of the training). The research team will use an ordered logit regression to assess the effect of the intervention on changes in attitude and planned behaviours. These scales will be completed as part of participation in the focus group. The research team will use focus groups to evaluate the pilot intervention and the refined intervention. Structured observation is a non-intrusive form of research where structured observations are made using a checklist. In this case, the research team will be using observational research to examine lifejacket (Who is in the boat – age, sex, are boaters wearing lifejackets or other flotation devices, etc.) use at baseline (pre-intervention) and post-intervention. The research team will also complete voluntary inventories of boating safety equipment in community members’ boats and those available for loan/purchase in each community. The research team will provide digital copies of all materials that the team co-develop with community members to stakeholders: Canadian Safe Boating Council and its members; Hamlet Councils; Hunters and Trappers Organizations; the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation; the Government of the NWT (Injury Prevention); the Canadian Red Cross; the Lifesaving Society of Canada; the NWT Recreation and Parks Association; and Canadian Power and Sail Squadrons. The team will create Instagram and Twitter accounts to document our activities throughout the grant to increase awareness of and interest in our process and outcomes. These accounts will be managed the Principal Investigator. The team will invite the Inuvik Drum, CBC North, local radio, and News/North to our events so that they receive media coverage. The research team will also send press releases to these media outlets. The intended audience is those who use boats in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region: Elders, adults, youth/children. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from January 10, 2020 to December 31, 2020.