An Evaluation of Health Contracting in the College Health Classroom

Abstract Contracting has been used as a strategy to change behavior in a wide variety of educational and service settings for quite some time. This development has not been ignored by health educators who have begun to use it in many different applications, structuring contingency management for behavioral change. Though the contract method is appealing to many practitioners and is in step with current thinking within the field concerning self-direction and responsibility, the literature does not clearly indicate the effectiveness of contracting nor how it is best used. Using sections of college-level, personal health classes in a quasi-experimental design, this evaluation found that contracting did not significantly help students to change their health behavior given otherwise routine instruction. Problems in using contracting in classroom health instruction, and suggestions for increasing the effectiveness of the method are discussed.