A large scale study of high school students was conducted to evaluate the effects of two classroom-based HIV and pregnancy prevention curricula. In addition to evaluating the overall success of the programs, a goal of the researchers was to determine the validity of measures that ask students to recall classroom activities after the activity occurred. Our findings suggest that students are able to correctly recall what events occurred in the classroom 18 months after the implementation of the intervention. The percentage of students who accurately recalled events that occurred in their classrooms ranged from 75-95% on most activities (e.g.; "wrote role plays and acted them out" - 91.5%; "HIV positive person talked to us"- 90.6%). Our findings also suggest two factors which may be related to recall are student involvement and issue salience. Accurate recall of events positively correlated with several measures of perception of classroom events (e.g.; "how interesting/ fun the class was" and "how much they participated in classroom activities") and with measures of sexual involvement and risk avoidance (e.g.; getting pregnant, AIDs, or other STDs). Although issue salience is traditionally an important factor in increasing the interest and/or attentiveness of participants, the level of student involvement and/or satisfaction in the classroom proved to be a better predictor of recall in the highly interactive curriculum. Further research is needed to determine which variables contribute significantly to recall and what is the maximum time lapse between occurrence and recall in order to find valid results.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, participants will be able to: 1) Apply findings to development of instruments or items designed to measure student recall of classroom events 2) Estimate the maximum time lapse between occurence of events and accurate recall 3) Identify possible factors that are related to recall of classroom activites
Keywords: Methodology, Curricula
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.