Public Health Promotion Through Language Learning: Improving Migrants' Australian Beach Safety Knowledge Through a Reading Exercise for English Language Proficiency Tests

ABSTRACT

Background

While Australia attracts overseas tourists and residents for beach‐related leisure and sports, coastal drowning is a serious issue in Australia, with 150 drowning deaths and about 9000 rescues recorded in 2023/2024. Culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities are at high risk due to their unawareness, linguistic barriers, lack of rip current knowledge and limited access to water safety education.

Aim

To provide further support for CALD communities, this study developed a new pedagogical tool, a reading exercise for standardised English exams such as IELTS, incorporating beach safety information; it examined to what extent this material would improve international students' knowledge of rip currents and safety strategies.

Research Method

This study utilised a quasi‐experimental design to measure the improvement of beach safety knowledge using a pre‐test, post‐test and follow‐up test. Statistical data were analysed in SPSS and R Studio, utilising descriptive analysis, and generalised estimate equations. Additionally, a thematic analysis of textual responses was conducted in NVivo.

Results

The results show that there was a significant improvement (p < 0.01) in the participants' knowledge of rips, beach flags and safety signage warnings after using the material. Additionally, participants started pointing out a wide range of characteristics when describing rip currents. Although some deterioration of knowledge (except regarding beach flags) was detected 4 weeks later, the improvement was still significant across all topics. So what? Considering the high demand for English language learning material among migrants in Australia, this material should be shared with CALD communities to improve beach safety knowledge.

1. Introduction

1.1. Coastal Drowning in Australia

Australia faces an annual average of 122 unintentional coastal drowning deaths in addition to about 9000 rescues provided by professional lifeguards and volunteer surf lifesavers at patrolled beaches every year [1]. Despite the enormous efforts made by all water safety organisations, the number of coastal drowning deaths has increased in Australia since the COVID‐19 pandemic. In 2023/2024, there were 150 coastal drowning deaths recorded, which was 18% higher than the annual average [1]. In the 10 years from 2013 to 2023, about 1200 coastal drowning deaths were recorded Australia wide. Of these decedents, almost 30% were born overseas (SLSA, 2024). When it comes to the rate of drowning per 100 000 population, figures (over a 10‐year average; top 10 countries of birth) provided by Willcox‐Pidgeon et al. [2] show that migrants from some countries have lower rates than those of Australian‐born residents (0.99 per 100 000 population), while others have higher. Those whose countries of birth have English as an official language mostly have lower or similar drowning rates (per 100 000 population): Philippines (0.47), United Kingdom (0.62), India (0.64), Malaysia (0.74), New Zealand (0.81), United States of America (1.09) and the outlier in this group, Ireland (1.61). The picture is similar for European countries (in which English is widely learned and spoken as a foreign language): Italy (0.87 per 100 000 population), Greece (0.95) and Germany (1.42). On the other hand, those from non‐European countries in which English is not an official language present a different picture: South Korea (2.63 per 100 000 population), Nepal (2.29), Taiwan (2.15), China (1.17) and Vietnam (1.12). Length of residence in Australia is a possible factor in the latter figures, with those more likely to have lived in Australia for a longer period, from China and Vietnam, having lower rates per 100 000 than those more likely to have arrived recently, from South Korea, Nepal and Taiwan [2].

With a view to reducing drowning, epidemiological research has identified key demographic groups such as young adult males [3] and older males [4], and behavioural characteristics, for example, risk‐taking behaviours among young adult males [3]. Temporal patterns associated with drowning fatalities, such as public holidays [5] and school holidays [6], were also studied. More recent studies have further illuminated the risks faced by non‐Australian beachgoers, including migrants [2], international visitors [7, 8] and international students [8].

1.2. Lack of Beach Safety Knowledge Among CALD Communities in Australia

Along with these epidemiological studies, research has examined the level of beach safety knowledge among beachgoers [9, 10, 11, 12]. Several studies show that many beachgoers who self‐reported that they ‘knew’ what rip currents were, could not identify rip currents on the beach [9, 10, 12, 13], while a representative population‐level survey revealed only 49% of Australians who were confident of their ability to identify a rip could do so correctly [14]. Shibata [11] examined whether beachgoers understood what beach signs warn about and found that some important messages, such as swim between the flags, and no flags = no swim, were not understood correctly. Such studies also show different tendencies between Australian‐born and overseas‐born beachgoers [12, 15, 16, 17]. For example, 85% of international students surveyed in Clifford et al. [16] were unfamiliar with the flags before arriving in Australia, and 69% of international students surveyed in Shibata et al. [17] misinterpreted the message, swim between the flags. Williamson et al. [12] also found a lower level of rip current knowledge among international tourists compared to Australian residents. Woods et al. [18] investigated beach safety knowledge and behaviour of South Asian communities living in New South Wales and found that almost 30% of them had no or poor understanding of the red and yellow flags. Of those who understand the flags, over 50% do not always swim between the flags, and 23% rarely or never swim between the flags.

1.3. Current Beach Safety Education

Some studies have begun to explore effective ways of teaching beach safety, although a significant knowledge gap remains [19]. Previous research has demonstrated improvement in beach safety knowledge through water safety workshops given by experts and through interactions with surf lifesavers [16, 20, 21, 22, 23]. Such education also shows indirect impacts potentially ‘spilling’ over to other locations or groups [24, 25]. In addition to these programs, various cities and councils in Australia also provide swimming lessons to minority groups such as migrants and refugees [26].

While these programs improve water safety knowledge and skills among residents, consideration of the different cultural and linguistic backgrounds of participants, hence, including experts with multilingual backgrounds, is crucial to their success. Water safety workshops also require financial investment to support employees, venues, advertising and recruitment. This means that securing budgets and applying for competitive grants are crucial to continuing to run targeted programs; if financial support is not guaranteed, future opportunities may be limited [27].

Another challenge for water safety organisations is motivating the public to learn beach safety and encouraging them to participate in the workshops. Publicly available water safety programs are often optional and seasonal, which means that people need to have an interest in learning beach safety to proactively seek information and attend a workshop when available. In order to motivate the public to participate in water safety programs, water safety organisations often provide a free or low‐cost service that can be resourced through external funding (see [26]).

Making water safety workshops culturally and linguistically accessible and inclusive is crucial for the multicultural society of Australia. Previous studies show that overseas‐born beachgoers often misunderstand warning messages written in Australian English or do not understand them at all [11, 17, 28, 29]. Willcox‐Pidgeon et al. [2] also emphasise that language could be a crucial element for drowning prevention, considering that those from South Korea, Nepal and Taiwan, where English is not an official language and who tend to have arrived in Australia fairly recently, have the highest proportion of drowning deaths per head of population.

Based on these conclusions, water safety workshops delivered in languages other than English are urgently needed. At the same time, it is important to give CALD groups information about beach safety in ways that they are most likely to access, regardless of their awareness of the need for this knowledge. Ideally, those who access these practice reading materials will be further motivated to attend a water safety workshop; the materials could also be used to provide pre‐workshop linguistic support for CALD participants to ensure their understanding of the workshop if delivered in English.

1.4. A New Inductive Approach for Beach Safety Education

The term, deductive approach is traditionally used to describe a pedagogy in which the educator explicitly introduces a topic and offers specific examples and activities to consolidate students' knowledge [30]. This study borrows the concept of the deductive approach and explains how current water safety education operates. When water safety organisations advertise their water safety workshops, they typically introduce a topic such as water safety, rip currents or coastal safety. The attendees expect to be given further information, examples, and then consolidate their knowledge through some activities. Although the deductive delivery approach can provide a clear idea of the workshop to those who are interested in learning beach safety, it may simultaneously exclude those who are not interested in water education or who are (over)confident in their knowledge. This implies that water safety education, especially if optional, may not appeal to those who (mistakenly) consider themselves at low or no risk.

Because of this limitation of the deductive approach, the inductive approach needs to be considered as an alternative to educate those who are not interested in learning beach safety. From a pedagogical point of view, the inductive approach is defined as a pedagogy in which educators provide a range of inputs, including information and learning activities, allowing learners to discover the target knowledge by themselves [30, 31, 32, 33]. Borrowing this concept of the inductive approach, this study develops a new approach to attract vulnerable CALD groups to use the material, and to provide them with an opportunity to learn about beach safety and discover the importance of establishing beach safety knowledge.

1.5. Research Focus and Questions

Attempting to innovate an inductive learning opportunity, this study developed reading practice material for English learners, incorporating beach safety information. This material gives international students who study English in Australia an opportunity to develop their reading skills, while inductively learning about beach safety. To maximise interest in using the practice material, a reading exercise was created that is compatible for use with the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), a widely known, standardised English exam. IELTS is currently used by over 12 000 organisations with 4 million test takers annually worldwide [34]. In Australia, the Department of Home Affairs requires applicants for some migration visas to provide evidence of appropriate language proficiency [35], and IELTS is commonly used for this purpose. IELTS is also a very popular test used by international students to demonstrate that they meet English language criteria when applying for university entrance in Australia [36]. Canada and New Zealand also use IELTS for these purposes [37, 38].

This study developed a practice reading exercise for standardised English exams such as IELTS, by which migrants can learn about beach safety, and examined the educational effectiveness of the material. For the purpose of this study, we selected international students currently living in Australia and studying English, as their motivation to improve English proficiency aligns directly with the research objectives. Additionally, conducting the experimental study through educational institutions ensured reliable access and organisational feasibility.

The specific research questions for this study are as follows:

1. Do international students inductively learn beach safety information effectively through the reading material developed for this study?

2. Do the international students retain the knowledge of beach safety obtained from the material, 4 weeks after using the material?

3. Did the participants value the reading exercise as beach safety educational material?

2. Research Methodology

2.1. Material Development

In order to ensure the quality of the reading passages as compatible exercise material for IELTS, as well as for beach safety learning, the material was developed through an iterative review process involving academic scholars working in the fields of Drowning Prevention (DP), Applied Linguistics (AL) and Linguistics (L), as Figure 1 shows. The content of the reading passages was determined based on current problems faced by overseas‐born beachgoers which have been reported in scientific literature and drowning statistics. Two scholars working in Applied Linguistics and Drowning Prevention (the authors, J.F. and M.S.) drafted three passages on the themes of (1) rip currents, (2) beach safety signage and (3) risky behaviour on Australian beaches. The first drafts were reviewed by another scholar in Applied Linguistics (the author, H.W.) and three scholars in Drowning Prevention (the authors, J.C.L., A.E.P. and an external scholar). Based on the revised drafts, which reflected the feedback, 13 to 14 questions for each passage were created (a total of 40 questions), with reference to the IELTS question types and characteristics explained by Moore et al. [39]. The drafts with the questions were reviewed again by an external scholar in Applied Linguistics. After further revision based on this feedback, the final draft was reviewed by an external scholar in Linguistics. The inclusion of CALD perspectives was also ensured by the fact that the research team (design and review) included four scholars with a CALD background. To ensure the level of academic words used to those in official IELTS readings, this study used a linguistic corpus tool, AntWord Profiler (version, 2.2.1) developed by Anthony [40] to examine the lexical frequency of academic words [41] as shown in Table 1.

FIGURE 1.

Material development through systematic review by relevant scholars.

TABLE 1.

Details of the reading passages.

	Theme	Word count	The number of academic words annotated in the corpus analysis	The proportion of academic words
Passage 1	Rip currents	677	566	83.6%
Passage 2	Beach safety signage	713	622	87.2%
Passage 3	Risky behaviour on Australian beaches	738	655	88.8%

It should be noted that the acceptability of the material as an exercise for the IELTS (or any other English testing system) is not guaranteed, and there has been no formal review by IELTS officials (or any official body of an English testing system). If an individual would like to rely on this material to assist in their study or completion of an English testing system, they are responsible for ensuring they comply with all requirements under that system. All texts and questions in this material were created by the authors who are in no way associated with IELTS or any English testing system. Furthermore, this study has no commercial purpose.

To access the material, visit the link: https://shop.monash.edu/water‐safety‐a‐reading‐exercise‐for‐english‐proficiency‐tests.html.

2.2. Surveys

This study used three surveys: a pre‐survey, a post‐survey and a follow‐up survey. The pre‐survey and the post‐survey measured any immediate improvement in beach safety knowledge after the intervention. The follow‐up survey, sent out 4 weeks after the post‐survey, assessed the retention of the information over that period. The survey questions were comprised of two themes: demographic characteristics and beach safety knowledge (rip currents and the warning signage). While the surveys were mostly comprised of closed multiple responses, some questions were accompanied by a textual response option to allow for clarification. Although the same questions were used throughout the three surveys, the post‐survey had additional questions about the perceived value of the material. The construct validity of the survey was ensured by an exhaustive literature review (as advised in [42, 43]) and a review by water safety experts (the authors, M.S., J.C.L. and A.E.P.) [44]. To add rigor to the validity of the survey, including clarity and feasibility, two international postgraduate students were invited to take a pilot version and provide feedback, based on which the final version was developed [42, 45].

2.3. Participants

As a group of CALD communities in Australia, this study targeted international students studying English in Australia. In 2024, 144 453 were enrolled in English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS) in Australia [46], so targeting international students studying English for this study tests the applicability of the material for a range of CALD communities in Australia.

Regarding recruitment, English language institutions and colleges affiliated with Australian universities were contacted by the chief investigator (M.S.) to request participation in this study and use of the material in their classrooms. Five institutions in Australia accepted the request, and the English material developed in this study was sent to them for review and confirmation. On the experiment day, where possible, the chief investigator attended the class to explain the participant information to the students. In the absence of the chief investigator, the classroom teacher played a video in which the chief investigator explained the same content. All participants were aiming to enrol in an Australian university and their English language proficiency was equivalent to an IELTS score of 5.0 or above (regarded as intermediate level or above; the survey also asked each participant how well they think they understand English [Q6]). The pre‐survey was completed by 101 students and the post‐survey, by 79 students. The follow‐up survey, which was sent out 4 weeks later, was completed by 29 students. Ethics approval was provided by the Monash Ethics Committee (ethics approval number: 42558).

2.4. The Experimental Procedure

This study adopted a quasi‐experimental design with the aim of understanding the impact of an intervention with a limited number of participants [47]. Firstly, the students were given an explanation of the study (including the participant information). After the induction, the survey QR code was displayed and the students were given 15–20 min to complete the survey on their own device (i.e., the Pre‐test). Immediately after submitting the survey, the students were asked to complete the reading exercise containing the three passages with 40 questions, within 60 min (i.e., the Experiment). During the exercise, the students were not allowed to discuss answers with other students. Once the exercise was completed, the correct answers were handed out to the students, and the participants self‐marked their answers. The handout simply showed the correct answers without any linguistic or content explanations, so students simply marked themselves based on whether their answers were correct or incorrect. During the self‐marking activity, no explanations from the teacher or investigator were given. Once the self‐marking was finished, the students immediately completed the post‐survey (i.e., the Post‐test). Some of those who completed the reading exercise in less than 60 min moved to these activities instead of waiting for everyone to complete the exercise. About 4 weeks later, students were contacted by their instructor via email and asked to complete the follow‐up survey (i.e., the follow‐up test). A four‐week interval between the post‐test and the follow‐up test was adopted, as this duration is commonly used to measure memory retention [48, 49, 50]. One institution conducted the follow‐up survey in the classroom as their students were still studying at the institution at that time.

2.5. Analysis

This study conducted two statistical analyses (a descriptive analysis and a generalised estimate equations analysis) and one thematic analysis. First, the descriptive analysis was conducted using SPSS (version, 29.0.1.0) to understand the demographic characteristics and prior knowledge of beach safety among the participants. For the descriptive analysis, all data, except for unfinished responses, were analysed (the number of each survey was addressed in Section 2.3).

A generalised estimating equations (GEE) analysis was then used to test for a mean change in individuals' knowledge over time, via repeated testing [51]. Statistical analysis was conducted in R (R V. 4.4.1) and RStudio (2024.4.1.748). The ‘geepack’ package [52] was used to identify any improvement in or deterioration of, beach safety knowledge across the study group. Data cleaning, transformation and visualisations were done using the ‘Tidyverse’ package [53]. For the GEE analysis, analyses were run for two groups of students, the first comparing responses for those who completed the pre‐survey and the post‐survey immediately following the beach safety knowledge intervention, while the second test used the subset of these individuals who also completed the follow‐up survey. Individual responses across the surveys were linked using the code provided by each responder, and those that were unable to be matched across surveys were removed (n = 56 respondents completed both the pre‐survey and first post‐survey, and n = 24 also completed the follow‐up survey). Responses to questions 10, 12 and 13 were analysed as ordinal categorical data (‘I don't know at all’ to ‘yes, absolutely’), whereas the categorical responses of Question 11 (‘safe zone’, ‘danger zone’, ‘race zone’ and ‘private zone’) were converted to binary responses (correct or incorrect) for analysis. Question 9 was excluded from this analysis since a very recent study, which used the same question, found no relation between participants' knowledge of rip currents and a safer choice of the locations to swim in this picture; thus, this question does not test beach safety knowledge of participants [28]. A thematic analysis was conducted for textual responses describing rip currents (Question 10‐2), using NVivo (Version 15). This analysis is to investigate what characteristics participants point out when describing rip currents.

3. Results

3.1. Demographic Data From the Pre‐Survey

Participants were mostly from Asia (n = 87, 86.1%), followed by South America (n = 8, 7.9%), the Middle East (n = 4, 4.0%) and Europe (n = 2, 2.0%). Of participants from Asia, the biggest groups were from China (n = 24) and Japan (n = 23). Regarding gender, 60.4% (n = 61) were female and 37.6% were male (n = 38; Table 2). Slightly over half the participants (n = 56, 55.4%) were in the youngest group of 18–34‐year olds, which was followed by 25–34‐year olds (n = 33, 32.7%). Only a few (n = 12, 11.9%) were over 35 years old. Regarding the length of time studying English, half (n = 50, 49.5%) had studied English for over 8 years and 22.8% (n = 23) had studied English for between 5 and 8 years (Table 2). Although all participants were supposed to have a score of IELTS 5.0 or above due to the proficiency criteria for the courses they were studying, a few (n = 10, 9.9%) assessed their English understanding as no ability (n = 2, 2.0%) or a little ability (n = 8, 7.9%; Table 2). Most participants, however, evaluated their understanding as average (n = 24, 23.8%), competent (n = 44, 43.6%) or proficient (n = 18, 17.8%). Five participants (5.5%) assessed themselves as superior. In terms of the length of stay in Australia, almost all participants (n = 95, 93.3%) had stayed in Australia for less than a year. Of these, 70% (n = 74) had lived in Australia for less than 3 months (Table 2).

TABLE 2.

Demographic data from the pre‐survey.

Questions	n = 101 (%)
Which country have you lived in for the longest amount of time? (responses have been categorised into the regions)
Asia/Pacific	87 (86.1%)
Latin America	8 (7.9%)
Middle East	4 (4.0%)
Europe	2 (2.0%)
What gender do you identify yourself as?
Male	38 (37.6%)
Female	61 (60.4%)
Prefer not to say	2 (2.0%)
How old are you?
18–24	56 (55.4%)
25–34	33 (32.7%)
35–44	9 (8.9%)
45–54	3 (3.0%)
How many years have you studied English?
1–4 years	16 (15.8%)
5–8 years	23 (22.8%)
More than 8 years	50 (49.5%)
Less than 1 year	12 (11.9%)
How well do you understand English?
Not at all	2 (2.0%)
A little/not well/functional (IELTS 4.5)	8 (7.9%)
Average/vocational (IELTS 5)	24 (23.8%)
Well/competent (IELTS 6)	44 (43.6%)
Very well/proficient (IELTS 7)	18 (17.8%)
Superior (IELTS 8 or above)	5 (5.0%)
Have long have you stayed in Australia?
Less than 3 months	74 (70.0%)
3–12 months	21 (23.3%)
13–24 months	3 (3.3%)
More than 2 years	1 (1.1%)
More than 5 years	1 (1.1%)
More than 10 years	1 (1.1%)

3.2. Experience of Beach Safety Education

The study asked participants about their experience of beach safety education in Australia. As Table 3 shows, more than half of the participants (53.5%, n = 54) had not learned anything about beach safety during their stay, while 28.7% (n = 29) had. Eighteen (17.8%) were unsure whether they had learned anything about this issue or not. Of those who had previously learned, universities were the most common source of education (69.0%, n = 20). A few had learned beach safety from people with whom they lived (20.7%, n = 6), public resources such as posters, signage or online resources (20.7%, n = 6) or family members (17.2%, n = 5).

TABLE 3.

Beach safety education experience in Australia.

Have you learned anything about beach safety in Australia?
Yes	29 (28.7%)
No	54 (53.5%)
Unsure	18 (17.8%)
Who did you learn beach safety information from? (n = 29)
University	20 (69.0%)
Tour guides	2 (6.9%)
Friends	3 (10.3%)
Family	5 (17.2%)
People I live or stay with	6 (20.7%)
Strangers	0 (0%)
Lifesavers/Lifeguards	2 (6.9%)
Posters/signage/online resources	6 (20.7%)
Other	4 (13.8%)
Can't remember/not sure	1 (3.4%)

3.3. Improvement in Beach Safety Knowledge Between the Pre‐Survey and Immediate Post‐Survey

This section describes individuals' improvement in beach safety knowledge after completing the exercise (Table 4 and Figure 2). The results show that for all questions, there is a significant positive change (p < 0.001) in individuals' level of beach safety knowledge between the pre‐survey and post‐survey responses (Table 5). This shows that participants' knowledge of rip currents, the flags, and the signage terms has significantly improved after completing the exercise (Table 5 and Figure 2).

TABLE 4.

Knowledge of beach safety examined by descriptive analysis.

	Pre‐survey (n = 101)	Post‐survey (n = 79)	Follow‐up survey (n = 29)
Q9. Where would you enter the water from if you decide to swim or bathe at this beach? (The survey shows a picture of a beach divided into four areas, each representing a different level of risk)
1 (area with sand bank – safest)	60 (59.4%)	51 (64.6%)	13 (44.8%)
2 (area with sand bank with a small feeder rip—some risk)	21 (20.8%)	14 (17.7%)	13 (44.8%)
3 (area with a rip current – dangerous)	7 (6.9%)	9 (11.4%)	2 (6.9%)
4 (area near reefs – some risk)	4 (4.0%)	1 (1.3%)	1 (3.4%)
Unsure	9 (8.9%)	4 (5.1%)	0 (0%)
Q10. Do you know what rip currents are?
Yes, absolutely	10 (9.9%)	41 (51.9%)	9 (31.0%)
I think I know	25 (24.8%)	34 (43.0%)	16 (55.2%)
I don't know/I'm not sure	66 (65.3%)	4 (5.1%)	4 (13.8%)
Q10‐2. Do you know how to spot/find rip currents (only those who chose Yes, absolutely, or I think I know)	(n = 35)	(n = 75)	(n = 25)
Yes, absolutely	6 (17.1%)	32 (40.5%)	7 (24.1%)
I think I know	10 (28.6%)	35 (44.3%)	12 (41.4%)
I don't know/I'm not sure	19 (54.3%)	8 (10.1%)	6 (20.7%)
Q11. What do these red and yellow flags mean?
Safe zone between the flags	50 (49.5%)	66 (83.5%)	24 (82.8%)
Dangerous zone between the flags	45 (44.6%)	12 (15.2%)	5 (17.2%)
Racing zone	2 (2.0%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
Private zone	4 (4.0%)	1 (1.3%)	0 (0%)
Q12. Do you know what bluebottle means in the beach context?
Yes, absolutely	2 (2.0%)	45 (57.0%)	8 (27.6%)
I think I know	5 (5.0%)	13 (16.5%)	8 (27.6%)
I don't know at all	94 (93.1%)	21 (26.6%)	13 (44.8%)
Q13. Do you know what shore dump means?
Yes, absolutely	5 (5.0%)	28 (35.4%)	4 (13.8%)
I think I know	10 (9.9%)	17 (21.5%)	8 (27.6%)
I don't know at all	86 (85.1%)	34 (43.0%)	17 (58.6%)

FIGURE 2.

Bar graphs showing the total number of responses that completed two surveys: pre‐survey and the immediate post‐survey (n = 56), to each of the four questions tested with the GEE analysis.

TABLE 5.

Improvement in knowledge between pre‐survey test and immediate post‐survey responses, analysed by generalised estimate equations.

Parameter	Estimate	Standard error	Wald	p
Q10. Do you know what rip currents are?
Intercept a
I think I know.	−0.505	0.185	7.42	0.006**
I don't know at all.	0.806	0.145	30.85	< 0.001***
Pre‐post comparison	1.406	0.166	71.44	< 0.001***
Q11. What do these red and yellow flags mean?
Intercept
Incorrect	0.755	0.226	11.2	< 0.001
Test	1.270	0.320	15.8	< 0.001***
Q12. Do you understand what ‘bluebottle’ means in the beach context?
Intercept
I think I know	−1.794	0.532	11.39	< 0.001***
I don't know at all	−0.891	0.523	2.91	0.088
Test	3.115	0.679	21.03	< 0.001***
Q13. Do you understand what ‘shore dump’ means in the beach context?
Intercept
I think I know	−1.578	0.292	29.31	< 0.001***
I don't know at all	−0.601	0.240	6.29	0.012*
Test	1.381	0.349	15.63	< 0.001***

Note: A level of significance is coded such that *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01 and ***p < 0.001, directional change is indicated by estimate value.

^a Statistically significant change compared to the reference category denoted. The reference category for GEE analyses for Q10, 12, and 13, was ‘Yes, absolutely’, and for Q11 was ‘Correct’.

3.4. Improvement in Beach Safety Knowledge Across the Three Surveys

This analysis revealed an overall improvement, but with subsequent deterioration of the knowledge gained, across the three survey times (Table 6). For Question 10, asking whether respondents understand what rip currents are, a significant increase in the number of ‘Yes, absolutely’ and ‘I think I know’ responses relative to ‘I don't know at all’ responses occurred (p = 0.014). However, the significant negative quadratic component (p = 0.003) indicates a subsequent weakening in this improvement in knowledge over time, suggesting the respondents did not retain the knowledge well (Table 6). Regarding Question 11, the knowledge of the red and yellow flags, there was only a significant positive linear change (p = 0.002), suggesting that the knowledge of participants about the flags consistently improved through time and did not deteriorate at the time of the follow‐up survey. Similar to the rip current question (Q10) outcomes, the change in responses to the question about bluebottles showed a significant overall improvement in knowledge (p < 0.001), but also a significant negative quadratic component (p < 0.001), where individuals' knowledge significantly improved directly after the intervention, yet this improvement weakened significantly in the follow‐up survey (Figure 3). Regarding the shore dump question (Q13), the non‐significant linear change is unable to provide evidence of a real increase in knowledge, potentially as the presence of a significant negative quadratic trend dominates the overall pattern (p < 0.001; Figure 3) This complexity is visualised in Figure 3, which shows an improvement in the first post survey, but a reversal in the follow‐up survey to a similar distribution of responses to the pre‐survey test.

TABLE 6.

Improvement in knowledge across the time of the three surveys examined by generalised estimate equations.

Q10: Do you know what rips are?
Parameter	Estimate	Standard error	Wald	p
Intercept
I think I know	−0.664	0.562	1.40	0.237
I don't know at all	1.448	0.443	10.69	0.001
Test (linear)	1.594	0.646	6.09	0.014*
Test (quadratic)	−2.082	0.698	8.89	0.003**

Q11: What do these red and yellow flags mean?
Parameter	Estimate	Standard error	Wald	p
Intercept
Incorrect	1.391	0.387	13.0	< 0.001
Test (linear)	1.577	1.577	9.66	0.002*
Test (quadratic)	−0.267	−0.267	0.23	0.63

Do you understand what ‘bluebottle’ means in the beach context?
Parameter	Estimate	Standard error	Wald	p
Intercept
I think I know	−1.027	0.164	39.38	< 0.001
I don't know at all	−0.331	0.227	2.12	0.146
Test (linear)	1.63	0.281	33.7	< 0.001*
Test (quadratic)	−1.298	2.68E‐01	23.44	< 0.001**

Q: Do you understand what ‘shore dump’ means?
Parameter	Estimate	Standard error	Wald	p
Intercept
I think I know	−1.433	0.297	23.28	< 0.001
I don't know at all	−0.368	0.248	2.21	0.137
Test (linear)	0.6	0.497	1.45	0.228
Test (quadratic)	−1.169	0.337	12.03	< 0.001**

^*Significant positive linear change with Test.

^**Significant non‐linear negative component to change with Test, that is, positive effect reduces in size with Test.

FIGURE 3.

Bar graphs showing the total number of responses that completed all three surveys: pre‐ and post‐ and follow‐up (n = 24), for each of the four questions tested with the GEE analysis.

3.5. Thematic Analysis of Textual Responses Describing Rip Currents

This section shows what kind of keywords (i.e., codes) the participants who believed they knew about rip currents used to describe rip currents. As Table 7 shows, dangerous, strong or fast currents (CN: 1) was the most popular code (n = 15, 32.6%) for the pre‐survey, followed by currents taking you or objects away from the shore (CN: 2) (n = 12, 26.1%) and currents moving offshore, outward or seaward currents (CN: 3) (n = 9, 19.6%). Similarly, dangerous, strong or fast currents (CN: 1) was the most popular code for both the post‐ and follow‐up surveys (n = 29, 24.6%, n = 10, 31.3% respectively). The second most popular response for the post‐survey was currents moving offshore, outward or seaward currents (CN: 3) (n = 19, 16.1%), followed by currents taking you or objects away from the shore (CN: 2) (n = 13, 11.0%). The post‐survey also had responses describing rip currents' appearance, for example, deep area, channel or currents (CN: 13) (n = 8, 6.8%), narrow or small currents (CN: 10) (n = 5, 4.2%), water with different colour, seaweed or wavy surface (CN: 14) (n = 5, 4.2%). Some respondents also incorrectly described them as currents moving onshore or inward currents (CN: 16) (n = 3, 2.5%) in the post‐survey. Both the post‐and follow‐up surveys had responses simply describing them as a dangerous area (CN: 12) (n = 10, 8.5% and n = 4, 12.5% respectively).

TABLE 7.

The frequency of the codes describing rip currents.

Code number (CN)	Code	Pre‐survey, n (%)	Post‐survey, n (%)	Post‐post‐survey, n (%)
1	Dangerous, strong, fast currents	15 (32.6%)	29 (24.6%)	10 (31.3%)
2	Currents taking you or objects away from the shore	12 (26.1%)	13 (11.0%)	2 (6.3%)
3	Currents moving offshore, outward or seaward currents	9 (19.6%)	19 (16.1%)	3 (9.4%)
4	Undertow	3 (6.5%)	1 (0.8%)	0 (0%)
5	Currents that do not let you come back	2 (4.3%)	1 (0.8%)	2 (6.3%)
6	(Unspecified) current movements	1 (2.2%)	2 (1.7%)	0 (0%)
7	A cause of drowning, injury and deaths	1 (2.2%)	4 (3.4%)	3 (9.4%)
8	Abnormal current	1 (2.2%)	2 (1.7%)	0 (0%)
9	High tide	1 (2.2%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
10	Narrow or small currents	1 (2.2%)	5 (4.2%)	1 (3.1%)
11	Not comprehensive or too generic description (e.g., currents, waves)	1 (2.2%)	9 (7.6%)	6 (18.8%)
12	A dangerous area (currents are not specified)	0 (0%)	10 (8.5%)	4 (12.5%)
13	Deep area, channel, currents	0 (0%)	8 (6.8%)	0 (0%)
14	Water with different colour, seaweed or wavy surface	0 (0%)	5 (4.2%)	1 (3.1%)
15	Transport water brought by breaking waves	0 (0%)	5 (4.2%)	0 (0%)
16	Currents moving onshore, inward currents	0 (0%)	3 (2.5%)	0 (0%)
17	A current between waves	0 (0%)	2 (1.7%)	0 (0%)
	Total (the total number of codes annotated for each survey)	46 (100%)	118 (100%)	32 (100%)

3.6. The Average Score on the Exercise and Feedback on the Material

This section shows participants' performance and feedback on the material. All feedback questions were rated out of 5 (on a scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree) (Table 8). The average score out of 40 was 28.9 (SD = 0.64). The mean for the participants' evaluation of the difficulty of the material was 3.46 (SD = 0.98). The usefulness of the material as a resource for beach safety education was rated as 4.21 (SD = 0.87). The mean for the likelihood of sharing the material with friends and family was 3.88 (SD = 1.11).

TABLE 8.

The average score on the reading task and feedback on the material.

Questions	Mean (SD)
Q14. What was your score out of 40? (missing 2)	28.9 (0.64)
Q15. How difficult was the IELTS reading exercise you just completed?	3.46 (0.98)
Q16. How useful was the IELTS reading exercise to learn about Australian beaches and beach safety?	4.21 (0.87)
Q17. Would you like to share this IELTS reading exercise material with your friends and/or family?	3.88 (1.11)

4. Discussion

This study demonstrated the educational effectiveness of the English learning material developed by a group of experts in Drowning Prevention, Applied Linguistics, and Linguistics and it could educate international students on beach safety regardless of their personal interests and motivations. At the same time, this study found a few aspects of the material, that could be improved by future studies.

4.1. Improvement in Beach Safety Knowledge Through the Material

This study provides strong evidence that many international students do not know what rip currents are and many interpret the flags' colours of ‘red’ and ‘yellow’ incorrectly, believing that they signal a danger zone. These findings are consistent with findings from previous studies [11, 15, 17, 28]. Since rip currents typically account for one in five coastal drowning deaths in Australia [14], understanding rip currents including how to identify them and what to do if unintentionally caught in one is a priority skill for beachgoers in Australia [54, 55, 56]. Additionally, beachgoers should stay on patrolled beaches and ‘swim/stay between the red and yellow flags’, areas typically supervised by professional or volunteer surf lifesavers [57]. However, the results suggest that international students may misunderstand or get confused about this message as they do not understand that the flags demarcate the safer place to swim or recreate. This result confirms that international students urgently need to be provided with beach safety information in novel engaging ways; otherwise, their risk of coastal drowning will not be reduced.

As educational material, this study found that the English reading material designed for this study led to a significant improvement (p < 0.001) in beach safety knowledge among the participants. Regarding rip currents, over 65% of participants did not know what rip currents were, but after completion of the material, over 50% felt that they fully understood rip currents and a further 43% thought they understood them. The participants became able to describe characteristics of the appearance of rip currents such as their colours, depth and width. Regarding red and yellow flags, about 45% of participants initially thought that the flags were signaling ‘a danger zone’, but the post‐surveys show that about 83% identified the meaning of the red and yellow safety flags correctly after completing the task.

In addition to these improvements, there was also a significant improvement (p < 0.001) in understanding warning messages used on public signs. Most participants did not know what ‘bluebottle’ and ‘shore dump’ meant before completing the exercise. This proportion was significantly reduced after survey completion (p < 0.001), demonstrating that the exercise material could provide not only beach safety knowledge, but also lexical knowledge relevant to the Australian coastal environment. This improvement is particularly important considering the fact that warning messages, especially those with the terms ‘bluebottle’ and ‘shore dump’, are currently not translated properly in a popular translation application and are often misunderstood by overseas‐born beachgoers [11, 17, 28]. Beach safety education involves specialised lexical items that cause misunderstanding and mistranslations; ensuring users' understanding of the language of beach safety is crucial for its effective delivery [11].

4.2. Incorporating the Material Into Existing Water Safety Education

Unlike native‐born Australians, migrants, especially those who speak English as an additional language, could have linguistic as well as cultural barriers in understanding beach safety information [11, 17]. Previous studies show that language learners have a better understanding of information in a second or foreign language if they are already familiar with the topic [58, 59, 60, 61, 62]. To maximise the effectiveness of beach safety workshops delivered in English for migrants, the material developed in this study can be adapted to provide pre‐knowledge before the workshop. In this way, beach safety information—that is, concerning rip currents—explained in a second language can be absorbed much more effectively compared to the case where migrants do not have any knowledge of the topic beforehand.

Ideally, the material and in situ workshops could be combined to provide a mutually reinforcing set of knowledge and practice, that is, experiential learning. As noted, (Section 1.2) previous studies show that some who report that they ‘know’ about rip currents in fact cannot identify them in a real situation [9, 10, 12, 13, 24]. Also, some cannot translate a static visual image of a rip current into real situations [13]. This implies that even if users understand what rip currents are through the exercise, it is not guaranteed that they can practicably apply this knowledge when they visit the beach. Therefore, those who learn about beach safety through the material should be strongly encouraged to participate in a practical workshop, ideally including activities that enable them to identify rip currents.

4.3. Challenges

While immediate improvement is observed, this study shows that participants' knowledge of beach safety and warning messages, except those concerning red and yellow flags, deteriorated to some extent 4 weeks after using the material. This implies that even if learners understand the information—for example, the phenomenon of rip currents—they may still have a fragile memory of what they are and how dangerous they are. Lexical knowledge related to warning messages also requires reinforcement as the improvement in this area was not as significant as that of beach safety. Regarding the linguistic knowledge of shore dump (Q13), where a significant negative quadratic trend potentially dominated the overall pattern (p < 0.001; Figure 3), it may have been a more challenging question conceptually, in terms of the physical meaning of the phrase in relation to beach safety.

To consolidate knowledge of both beach safety and related lexical items gained from the reading exercise, this study suggests that output exercises such as writing or speaking practice should accompany the reading exercise [63, 64]. Studies of applied linguistics have found that the acquisition of a second language can be maximised by a mixed pedagogy involving both input and output exercises [63, 65, 66]. Therefore, by adding an extra writing or speaking exercise, users can bolster their understanding of the information from their reading, produce the information themselves, and embed the learning more deeply in their memory. Therefore, future studies will be designed to incorporate writing or speaking exercises into the material and to reexamine their effectiveness.

4.4. Limitations

Some limitations of this study need to be recognised and, where possible, addressed in future research. Firstly, the reliability of the data from the follow‐up survey is not as high as that of the other surveys due to the much smaller number of responses. Most participants were no longer studying at the institution when the follow‐up survey was conducted so they could be informed of the survey only via email. This study also did not offer any incentives, which may have impacted the response rate, especially for the follow‐up survey. Secondly, the investigators could not control the conditions outside the classroom so the participants might have encountered other, external interventions or experiences between the post‐ and follow‐up surveys that could have influenced the results. Thirdly, the experiment was conducted during the winter season in Australia (July and August), so the pre‐survey result could have been affected by possibly fewer opportunities for participants to receive beach safety information outside the summer season.

5. Conclusion

This study introduced an innovative inductive pedagogy of teaching beach safety through an exercise developed as practice material for English language proficiency tests such as the IELTS. The study shows that the material significantly improved the users' knowledge of beach safety, not only immediately after the intervention but even after a period of 4 weeks, in spite of some deterioration of knowledge over this period. Based on this outcome, it can be concluded that this inductive way of teaching beach safety through an English language reading exercise has a significantly positive impact on users' knowledge of beach safety, even though they may have had no prior interest in the topic. This intervention has considerable potential to educate a much wider cohort in Australia and other countries on beach safety. With minimum financial burden and organisational challenge, this exercise can be widely implemented for self‐study, incorporated into English language programs or integrated into water safety education. Additionally, this exercise also offers an opportunity to introduce Australian beach safety to prospective migrants, including international students before their arrival. To further facilitate this, future studies should expand materials to include output activities, such as writing and speaking, modify the text for different learner levels, such as beginners, and adapt it to a wider range of popular standardised English testing systems.

Funding

This work was supported by the Faculty of Arts New Appointee Grant at Monash University. The authors also declare that this study did not receive any financial or personal support from the International English Language Testing System (IELTS).

Ethics Statement

Ethics approval was provided by the Monash Ethics Committee (ethics approval number: 42558).

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Shibata M., Lawes J. C., Stolper R., Ford J., Peden A. E., and Watanabe H., “Public Health Promotion Through Language Learning: Improving Migrants' Australian Beach Safety Knowledge Through a Reading Exercise for English Language Proficiency Tests,” Health Promotion Journal of Australia 37, no. 1 (2026): e70132, 10.1002/hpja.70132.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.