Evaluation of “Crossroads” a tobacco prevention drama for Middle School students in Hawaii

The evaluation of “Crossroads,” a youth tobacco prevention play in Hawaii, uses pretests and posttests to determine changes in students' knowledge, attitudes and potential behaviors related to tobacco use. Response bias may confound measurement of the play's effect; therefore a controlled intervention of the “Crossroads” play was designed to improve measurement of the drama's effectiveness. ”Crossroads” was performed for 162, 6th grade students at the Kamehameha School for Native Hawaiians on the island of O'ahu. Students completed a pre- and post-assessment that included both quantitative and qualitative items. Simultaneously, 340 students in a comparable Kamehameha School for Native Hawaiians on the island of Hawaii completed a pretest. After a two-week delay, the 6th grade students in the comparison group at the Hawaii Island school completed posttests without viewing the play. SPSS Version 16 was used to analyze quantitative data, while themes were extracted from the compiled qualitative data using grounded theory. Students in the intervention group showed significant improvement (p<.05) from pretest to posttest in response to the nine (9) questions measuring the students' knowledge, attitudes and intended behaviors towards tobacco use. Analysis of the comparison group showed no significant changes in response to these questions. The drama is effective in improving knowledge, attitudes, and potential behavior towards tobacco use in students who viewed the play. This evaluation demonstrated that the effect of response bias was not the mechanism of improvement. Thus, the use of drama may provide a promising venue for tobacco use prevention among young persons.