Report On The Teen-Aid Abstinence-Education Program

Seventh-Year Evaluation

2000-2001

Prepared For Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District

Drawer 990, Edinburg, Texas  78540-0990

Prepared by

Raja S. Tanas, Ph.D.

Department of Sociology

Whitworth College

Spokane, WA  99251-1105

e-mail: rtanas@whitworth.edu

(August 2001)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The present report is a result of a long-term commitment that Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District has made several years ago to launch and maintain an effective family-life education program that draws on the Teen-Aid sex education curricula to uphold, promote, and affirm abstinent behavior among teens.

This is the seventh consecutive year that the Edinburg School District has made a concerted effort to evaluate the effectiveness of its program via formal research. Data from 1008 junior and senior high school students in five schools were gathered during the 2000-2001 school year. The sample respondents were predominantly Hispanic with a slight majority of males. A questionnaire was constructed for this purpose and was administered by classroom teachers. The one-group pretest-posttest experimental design was the method of research.

The following report consists of there sections. In the first two sections, socio-demographic characteristics of the sample were presented followed by a summary of student attitudes and behavioral intentions relative to teen sex. Finally, the t–test for independent samples was employed to identify pretest-posttest differences in mean scores of variables targeted by the program.

Results from the study clearly indicated that the program had statistically significant impact on at least eighteen areas of a student’s life and relative to teen sex. This means that participation in the family-life education program moved students to a greater degree toward agreement with teen abstinence.

The following generalizations represent the highlights of the study. After completing the family-life education program, students were more likely to agree that:

• They would not consider having a child while unmarried

• Teen sex would make it harder for them to get a good job or be successful in a career

• Teen sex would make it harder to have a good marriage and family life

•  Sexual intercourse was not a normal or an expected part of teenage dating relationship

• They were now surer that, if someone wanted to have sexual intercourse with them in the next year, it would not happen

• It was against their values to have sex as unmarried teenagers

• It was not all right for teenagers to have sex before marriage even if they were in  love

• It was not O.K. for unmarried teenagers to have sexual intercourse even if they used birth control

• Teens who have been dating for a long time should not have sexual intercourse even if  their partner wanted to

• A teen who has had sex outside of marriage would be better off to stop having sex and wait until marriage

• Having sex before marriage was against their personal standards

• Teen sex would make it harder for them to get good education

• The best way for teens to avoid an unwanted pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease was to wait until they were married before having sex

• They were now more convinced that their parents’ dating rules were fair

• They were now more convinced that having a child while unmarried would have unfavorable effects on their life

• They were less likely to have sexual intercourse at anytime before marriage

• In a pregnancy, life began at conception

• They now felt more comfortable to go to their parents with questions about sex

The impact of the program was greater for junior high than senior high students. Similar to earlier research findings, school and teacher variability in program effectiveness were observed.