Prof. Dr. Maria Limbourg | Mobility and Traffic Education
Personal Details
Professor Maria Limbourg graduated in Psychology and Educational Science at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina (1968) and received her Ph. D. in Psychology at the University of Duesseldorf in Germany (1972) with a thesis titled "Examination of the role of verbalisation in the adoption process of discrimination among adults". Maria Limbourg worked as university lecturer from 1972 till 1993 in Clinical and Traffic Psychology at the University of Tuebingen. In 1979 she earned her postdoctoral lecturer qualification from University Tuebingen with a thesis on “Basics and methodologies of a behaviour-oriented traffic education in the pre-school age”, which delivered the basis for the nationwide program "Child and Traffic" of the DVR. Since 1994 she works as a full-time professor in educational science with the main emphasis on "Injury Prevention", "Road Safety Education" and "Traffic Psychology" at the University of Duisburg-Essen. She is continuously conducting national and international research projects with her group. she provided significant contributions through excellent scientific works to the improvement of road safety.
Teaching
Professor Limbourg’s aim is to teach students about road safety education and traffic psychology. Within the scope of her teaching, Professor Limbourg takes part in the training of teachers at primary and secondary levels I und II by master education and social education. Main focuses of her lectures are the subjects of "mobility" and "traffic" and their educational implications.
Research
Professor Limbourg’s main research areas are
- Behaviour of children and young people in traffic
- Road safety education in childhood and adolescence
- Road safety education in the family and at school
- Injury prevention in childhood and adolescence
- Behaviour of elderly people in traffic
Her recent research projects are
- Mobility of elderly people
- Injury prevention in primary schools
- The effectiveness of traffic education programs
- Risk taking behaviour in young people
- Optimization of the program "child and traffic"
- The growing of children and young people in the motorized society - The future images of children and teenagers to transport use
- Investigation of problems of 6 to 12-year-old children in the traffic
- Child safety on the way to school
- Night leisure mobility of young adults
- Possibilities for the rise of public transport use on disco ways
- Public transport in the school lessons
Professor Limbourg has conducted numerous significant research projects on an international basis like "Traffic education" in Argentina, Brasil, Colombia, "Protecting Life" in Chile, "Curitiba’s Transportation System", Baracoa-Cuba, and national projects like "Mobility in an advanced age" and many others. She cooperates with international partners from academia as well as governmental institutions like Essen Traffic AG (ESAG), Federal Ministry of Transportation, Building and Housing (BMVBW), Ministry for School and Continuous Education, Transportation Association Rhein-Ruhr (VRR), Police of the City Duisburg and others.
She has also released numerous scientific publications that appeared in books and other media like Children in road traffic, Mobility in high age, Mamamia (film for the lessons in driving schools), on the way with bus and tram, Disco-Line, or in refereed journals like Biometric Magazine, Magazine for experimental and applied psychology, Psychology in education and lessons, Magazine for Traffic Security, Traffic Psychology, Magazine for Traffic Education, Magazine for Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Accident Analysis and Prevention, Mobile und Safe and so on.