ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Sport Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1666979
This article is part of the Research TopicPsychological Factors in Physical Education and Sport - Volume VIView all 28 articles
Effects of water safety knowledge on high-risk swimming behaviour among Chinese secondary school students: a moderated mediating role
Provisionally accepted
- Hubei Minzu University, Enshi, China
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Background:Current literature lacks to describe the mechanism of action of water safety knowledge on high-risk behaviors in swimming. Therefore, the present study constructed a moderated mediation model focusing on the mediating role of sensation seeking in the relationship and the moderating role of self-efficacy. Methods:In this study, the scale was administered to 1800 junior high school students in central China using the whole cluster sampling method on a school-by-school basis. A total of four scales were measured, which were divided into the Water Safety Knowledge Scale for assessing students' level of water safety knowledge, the Sensation Seeking Scale for assessing students' tendency to seek novelty and stimulation, the Self-Efficacy Scale to measure the level of students' confidence in their own ability to swim, and the Swimming Risky Behaviours Scale to assess the level of students' knowledge of swimming risky behaviours. Data were analyse and processed using the software AMOS 28.0 and SPSS 27.0. Results:The results showed that (1) there was a significant negative effect of water safety knowledge on high-risk swimming behavior after controlling for gender, age, and grade level. (2) There was a significant negative predictive effect of water safety knowledge on sensation seeking, while the positive predictive effect of sensation seeking on swimming high-risk behavior was equally significant. Sensation seeking mediated the relationship between water safety knowledge and high-risk swimming behaviour. (3) Swimming self-efficacy The direct predictive effect of water safety knowledge on high-risk swimming behaviour and the mediating effect of sensation seeking were both moderated by swimming self-efficacy. For subjects with lower levels of swimming self-efficacy, sensation-seeking had a significant positive predictive effect on high-risk swimming behavior; for subjects with higher levels of swimming self-efficacy, sensation-seeking had a stronger positive predictive effect on high-risk swimming behavior. Conclusions:Based on these findings, it is recommended that schools and relevant authorities move beyond mere knowledge dissemination in future drowning prevention education. Instead, they should develop integrated intervention programs that combine knowledge transfer with self-efficacy enhancement and impulse management training. Tailored, precision-targeted safety education should be implemented for students with different psychological traits.
Keywords: swimming high-risk behaviors, Water safety knowledge, self-efficacy, sensation seeking, Junior high school student
Received: 16 Jul 2025; Accepted: 15 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shi, Xie and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hui Zhang, 2009016@hbmzu.edu.cn
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