Effectiveness of Drug Education Components: Knowledge, Attitudes, Decision Making, Motivations, and Self-Esteem.

Abstract The researchers hypothesized that drug education programs are effective in increasing knowledge, changing attitudes, influencing motivations, and improving self-esteem and decision making skills. The relationship among self-esteem, decision making, motivations for drug usage and knowledge/attitudes as they relate to drug education was also investigated. There were 400 participants in this four state study. The subjects were boys and girls from fourth through eighth grade, primarily from suburban school systems. The evaluation process involved a pretest/posttest design using two test instruments. The written pretests were administered in September, 1990 and the posttests were given in May, 1991. Self-esteem did not improve significantly in this short time frame. The scores on knowledge and attitudes improved significantly from the pretest to the posttest and there was a significant positive correlation between decision making and knowledge/attitudes. This relationship lends support to the premise ...