The study into the water survival competency skills of 48 children from Dunedin primary schools showed 62% were unable to swim 100m unaided and children did not retain information about how to save themselves in the water.
Study author Assoc Prof Chris Button said if children had more competency, not only at swimming but also in knowing how to survive when they got in trouble in the water, there would be a significant reduction in the number of drownings each year.
Last year there were 81 preventable drowning deaths in New Zealand.
Forty-one people had drowned so far this year, Water Safety New Zealand statistics showed.Study participants aged 6 to 11 years old were tested on their knowledge of and reaction to buoyancy, submersion, simulated rescues, negotiation of obstacle courses and propulsion in the water, before 10 weeks of education by an instructor, during instruction and after.
Before the lessons the survival skills of participants were "quite low" and while children improved their overall competency during the lessons, 10 weeks later, the improvement was not retained, Prof Button said.
"The results of this research reveal that New Zealand children typically lack a range of important survival skills and that further attention to how these skills are acquired is also needed among eduction providers."
Two per cent of drownings in New Zealand happened in pools last year and swimming teachers, parents and educators needed to consider teaching children in environments where they were more likely to encounter problems, he said.
"I suspect a lot of the time we give children a couple of lessons in the pool and then they are out in other water, with waves crashing or it can much colder and it is very different," Prof Button.
The research comes amid findings by Water Safety New Zealand that 75% of children who have swimming lessons have 10 or fewer a year, Prof Button said.
He hoped the research would encourage people to consider the need for a larger balance between swimming lessons and survival skill education.
This summer he would research how children retained similar survival and swimming skills in different environments.
• Prof Button will present his research tonight at a public seminar in room 213/214 of the University of Otago School of Education building, at 55 Union St West, at 6pm.
