Report On The Teen-Aid Abstinence-Education Program

 Eighth-Year Evaluation

2001-2002

 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

(July 2002)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District continues to develop its family-life education program that draws on the Teen-Aid sex education curricula to uphold, promote, and affirm abstinent sexual behavior among teens. To this end, the school district has initiated an annual research project to assess the effectiveness of this program on changing student attitudes and behavioral intentions relative to premarital sexual activity. The present report is based on the eighth’s year study.

The report is based on data gathered from 1579 seventh and ninth through twelfth grade students who were enrolled at seven schools within the district during the 2001-2002 academic year. The sample respondents were predominantly Hispanic with a slight majority of females. A new aspect of the research project for this year highlighted the posting of the instrument online. Students responded to the instrument at the computer labs of their respective schools under the supervision of their teachers. The one-group pretest-posttest experimental design was the method for research.

The first two sections of the report presented the socio-demographic characteristics of the sample followed by a summary of student attitudes and behavioral intentions relative to teen early sexual activity. In the third section, the t–test for independent samples statistical technique was employed to assess the impact of the program.

Results from the study clearly indicated that the program continued to make an impact on students as represented by their movement on at least thirteen of the targeted variables. The following generalizations are few highlights of the study.

After completing the program, students were more likely to agree that:

• The problems that happen to other teens when they have sex would also happen to them if they had sex

• Teens who have been dating for a long time should not be willing to go along and have sexual intercourse even if their partners wanted to

• They would not consider having a child if they were not married

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

• Having sexual intercourse should not be treated as another normal or expected part of teenage dating relationships

• It was not likely that they would have sexual intercourse before they got married

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

• In a pregnancy, life began at conception

• They felt that now they could go to their parents with questions about sex

• Having a child while unmarried would affect one’s life not favorably

• They would not allow someone to have sex with them if he or she tried to do so

• They would not date someone who tried to have sex with them

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

The impact of the program was greater for students who were in grade seven, virgin, and male than students who were in grades nine through twelve, non-virgin, and female. However, the overall number of impacted variables among grades nine through twelve was greater than the number in last year’s study. Consistent with findings reported in earlier evaluations, school and teacher variability in degree of program effectiveness was observed.