<p>Background: Since the Great East Japan Earthquake, it has been considered important to provide disaster prevention education in schools to facilitate children’s independent evacuation behaviors during disasters. Previous studies have indicated that risk perception about disasters affected disaster prevention behaviors.</p><p>Objectives: This study investigated the selection of evacuation behaviors among higher grade elementary school children in simulated earthquakes and tsunami scenarios, as well as their knowledge about evacuation behaviors and cognitive factors based on Protective Motivation Theory（PMT）. Furthermore, the contents of effective disaster prevention education were discussed to facilitate independent evacuation behaviors in children.</p><p>Methods: A self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted with fifth and sixth graders in six elementary schools in Kanagawa Prefecture. The following three vignettes assuming an earthquake or a tsunami were shown to the participants: an earthquake when boarding a bus, an earthquake during out-of-school activities, and a tsunami during sea bathing. Participants were required to select the evacuation behavior they would choose in each situation. Moreover, they were inquired about risk perceptions（severity and vulnerability of disasters）, benefit perceptions（self-efficacy and response efficacy related to safe evacuation behaviors）, and intentions of disaster prevention based on PMT as well as their knowledge of evacuation behaviors.</p><p>Results: Of the participants (N=1,388), 1,206 gave valid responses (602 boys and 604 girls; 597 fifth graders and 609 sixth graders). The results of an exploratory factor analysis revealed that the risk perception items consisted of one factor（vulnerability）, benefit perception items consisted of two factors（self-efficacy and response efficacy）, and intention of disaster prevention consisted of one factor. The result of a multivariate analysis of variance indicated that the children, especially boys, who chose independent evacuation behaviors in all the three vignettes showed high scores for knowledge, risk perception, response efficacy, and intention of disaster prevention. On the other hand, self-efficacy was not related to independent evacuation behaviors. It was possible that an increase in self-efficacy related to safe evacuation behaviors did not lead to independent evacuation behaviors.</p><p>Conclusions: It is important to increase response efficacy such as effective evacuation behaviors as well as risk perception (vulnerability) regarding disasters in order to develop independent evacuation behaviors in children. Furthermore, using simulations of disasters, such as the vignettes used in this study, may be effective for facilitating disaster prevention education in schools.</p>