The aim of this study was to measure the effects of video self-modelling on three children with dog fears aged between 7 and 13 years old. The study also aimed to teach these three children appropriate dog safety techniques and dog body language identification skills which they could use in everyday life. All three participants were recruited through school newsletters. The three participants attended two meetings with the researcher to discuss their dog fears and what they wanted to achieve from taking part in the study. Videos of each participant were then created to depict the participants being within the same environment as a dog while acting calm and displaying coping skills. Participants were also given hypothetical scenarios of where they may encounter a dog and were asked to rate their fear level. A book was created to teach the participants how to read a dog’s body language and how to behave around dogs. Participants viewed their videos and read their books for two weeks. They then went back to the same setting of the video with a real life dog and were asked to rate their fear levels for the same hypothetical scenarios. Results showed an overall decrease in reported fear levels in two of the three participants, with the third participants showing variable fear levels. It can be concluded that the video along with the book had positive effects on the participants’ fear levels and knowledge about dog behaviour. One major limitation of this study is whether the video or the book alone or a combination of both was responsible for the participants’ results and behaviour changes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:canterbury.ac.nz/oai:ir.canterbury.ac.nz:10092/8307 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Swney, Megan |
| Publisher | University of Canterbury. School of Health Sciences |
| Source Sets | University of Canterbury |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic thesis or dissertation, Text |
| Rights | Copyright Megan Swney, http://library.canterbury.ac.nz/thesis/etheses_copyright.shtml |
| Relation | NZCU |
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