# A survey of nearly 1,800 teenagers found better water-safety knowledge went with less risky swimming, but students who felt highly capable in the water and scored high in sensation seeking were still the ones most likely to take chances

> Nearly 1,800 junior high school students in central China took part in a survey that asked how much they knew about staying safe in the water, how strongly they chased excitement, how confident they felt about their swimming and how often they...

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Byline: ARGO.net Editorial Team
Published: 2026-08-26T08:10:02+00:00
Categories: Explainer, Water

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Nearly 1,800 junior high school students in central China took part in a survey that asked how much they knew about staying safe in the water, how strongly they chased excitement, how confident they felt about their swimming and how often they accepted risky situations in the pool or open water. In the final statistical analysis, the clearest pattern in a [2025 study in Frontiers in Psychology](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1666979/full) was encouraging but qualified: students with more **water safety knowledge** tended to report less **high-risk swimming behaviour**, yet the relationship became more complicated when personality and confidence entered the model.

The paper by **Jiaxin Shi**, Chao Xie and **Hui Zhang** used a moderated mediation model, which is a statistical way to test whether one factor may help explain a pattern while another factor changes its strength. The authors report that **sensation seeking**, the tendency to enjoy novelty and stimulation, partly linked knowledge to behaviour. They also found that **swimming self-efficacy**, or confidence in one's own swimming ability, changed how strongly knowledge and thrill seeking lined up with reported risk taking.

Readers should treat the study as a careful survey and model, not as proof that one trait directly causes another. The design was cross-sectional, which means the answers were collected at one point in time rather than followed across months or years. Even with that limit, the findings matter because they suggest that water-safety lessons may work best when they address judgment, impulse control and overconfidence together, instead of assuming that facts alone will change what teenagers do once they are actually in the water.

## What the survey measured

The researchers said they used **cluster sampling** on a school-by-school basis in central China and initially surveyed 1,800 secondary school students. After screening the returns, 1,666 valid questionnaires were used in the main regression analyses. Four scales were included: a water safety knowledge scale, a sensation seeking scale, a self-efficacy scale focused on swimming confidence and a scale for risky swimming behaviour.

Each scale was aimed at a different part of the problem. Knowledge covered how well students understood safe conduct around water. Sensation seeking was designed to capture attraction to excitement and novelty. Swimming self-efficacy asked how capable students believed they were in the water. The risky behaviour scale then focused on the kinds of actions that raise the chance of trouble, such as taking unnecessary chances, misjudging conditions, or behaving too boldly because the setting feels familiar.

The design is useful because drowning prevention is rarely just a matter of whether a student has heard the rules. The [World Health Organization's drowning fact sheet](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drowning) says children and young people carry a large share of global drowning risk and it also stresses that basic swimming and water-safety skills need to be taught within a broader risk-management approach. The Chinese survey adds a psychological layer to that public-health message by asking why some adolescents still take chances after safety information reaches them.

## Why knowledge still helped

The simplest result in the paper is also the most reassuring one. After controlling for sex, age and grade, the authors found a significant negative relationship between water safety knowledge and reported high-risk swimming behaviour. In plain language, students who knew more about staying safe around water were less likely to say they engaged in risky conduct.

Knowledge may help because it gives teenagers more than a list of rules. It can improve recognition of danger, raise awareness of how fast conditions can change and make warnings feel concrete instead of abstract. A related article the authors cited, [Will they sink or swim? New Zealand youth water safety knowledge and skills](https://doi.org/10.25035/ijare.02.02.04), also examined the gap between what young people know and what they can safely do. Together, that older work and the new Chinese survey support the idea that safety education still belongs at the center of prevention efforts.

Even so, the size of the effect in this survey was modest. The reported models explain part of the variation in behaviour, not all of it. That is important because it keeps the result realistic. A student can understand the basics of safety and still choose poorly in a moment of pressure, excitement, peer influence, or misplaced confidence. Knowledge helps, but the survey suggests that it does not close the whole gap between safe judgment and risky action.

## How thrill seeking entered the picture

One of the paper's main goals was to test whether **sensation seeking** helps explain why knowledge does not translate evenly into safer behaviour. The authors report that higher water safety knowledge was linked to lower sensation seeking scores, while higher sensation seeking was linked to more risky swimming behaviour. In the model, sensation seeking carried part of the pathway between knowledge and behaviour.

That result fits a wider body of adolescent risk research. The study cites work on thrill-oriented behavior in sports and other settings and it also lines up with a more specific water study, [Drinking and swimming around waterways: the role of alcohol, sensation-seeking, peer influence and risk in young people](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276558). A teenager who enjoys novelty, speed, or testing limits may understand that a choice is unsafe and still find that choice attractive because the danger itself carries social or emotional appeal.

Another recent paper cited by the authors, [The influence of water safety knowledge on adolescents' drowning risk behaviors](https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1354231), also argued that knowledge works within a wider framework of risk and protection. The new Frontiers paper moves one step further by trying to separate a direct knowledge effect from an indirect route that passes through sensation seeking. Because the study was a single-time survey, the model shows a plausible pattern of association rather than a confirmed chain of cause and effect.

## Why confident swimmers need special attention

The most interesting part of the survey may be the role of **swimming self-efficacy**. Confidence in the water was not simply a protective factor that damped every other risk. According to the authors' moderation analysis, self-efficacy changed both the direct association between knowledge and risky behaviour and the indirect association that ran through sensation seeking.

Students with lower swimming self-efficacy still showed a positive association between sensation seeking and risky behaviour, but the relationship was stronger among students with higher self-efficacy. That pattern suggests a familiar danger in many physical activities: when teenagers feel highly capable, the feeling itself can make risky choices seem more manageable. A strong swimmer may believe they can handle deep water, rough conditions, horseplay, or a challenge from friends, even when the situation is moving outside their actual margin of safety.

The paper does not say confidence is bad. Swimming competence remains valuable and the WHO practical guidance on [basic swimming and water safety skills](https://www.who.int/publications/b/62457) treats skill-building as a core prevention tool when it is delivered with tested safety standards and proper supervision. The Chinese survey instead points to a narrower problem: confidence without restraint can coexist with stronger risk taking, especially in adolescents who also score high on excitement seeking.

Evidence from outside this one survey supports the need for caution around perceived ability. The authors referenced a 2023 paper, [Effects of hazards and sensation-seeking on intermediate swimming college students' hazard perceptions](https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.3338), which examined how thrill-seeking traits relate to hazard judgment in swimmers. Across age groups, the recurring issue is that ability, perceived ability and safety decisions do not always move together.

## What schools and parents can take from it

Prevention programs often start with rules, warning signs and technique drills and those parts still matter. The survey suggests they should be paired with discussions about impulse, peer pressure and the feeling of being strong enough to beat the odds. A teenager who says, "I know the rule, but I can handle it," may need a different kind of lesson than a teenager who lacks basic water knowledge.

Schools could use that insight in several practical ways. Water-safety education can include scenario-based choices instead of memorization alone. Coaches and teachers can discuss how overconfidence shows up in real settings, including crowded pools, rivers after heavy rain, or informal swimming with friends. Parents can also watch for the combination that looks most concerning in this survey: a child who seeks thrills, feels very confident in the water and treats caution as something meant for weaker swimmers.

Public-health guidance already points in that direction. The WHO fact sheet emphasizes supervised childcare for young children, strong barriers around hazards and the teaching of swimming and safe rescue skills for school-age children within carefully managed programs. The survey from central China does not replace those basics. It adds a useful reminder that adolescent drowning prevention may need psychological targeting as well, especially for students whose personality makes risk feel rewarding.

## What the model can and cannot tell us

Several limits keep the study from making stronger claims. The data came from self-reports, so the answers reflect what students said about their own knowledge, confidence and behavior. The sample also came from one region and one educational stage, which means the numbers should not be treated as a universal map of teenage swimming risk everywhere.

The statistical model is still valuable because it organizes a messy real-world problem into parts that can be tested. It shows that **adolescent water safety** is influenced by more than instruction sheets and swimming drills. It also suggests why the same lesson can land differently in different students. Some teenagers may respond well to facts alone, while others may need coaching that addresses status, thrill seeking and inflated confidence before safer choices become more likely.

Future research could test the idea more directly by following students over time or by measuring how behavior changes after tailored interventions. For now, the present survey offers a grounded conclusion. Better knowledge was associated with less risky swimming, yet the students who mixed high confidence with a stronger appetite for excitement remained the group most likely to report taking chances. For educators, families and safety planners, that means the best water-safety program may be the one that teaches skill, teaches judgment and teaches respect for conditions at the same time.