Evaluation of the alcohol education program administered to freshman students

During the Fall 2007 semester, 1561 college freshman were administered an alcohol education program as part of an orientation class all freshmen must attend. Of those, 1434 students (59.4% female) returned their survey completed for a response rate of 92%. This study utilizes an experimental, post test-only, cross-sectional survey research design and the primary purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the alcohol education program to enhance students' alcohol knowledge and attitudes toward heavy patterns of use. A secondary purpose was to assess differences in attitudes and knowledge of alcohol between males and females. There were 31 separate freshmen orientation classes and students were randomly assigned by class to either treatment or control groups. Examination of the results showed that students in the treatment group reported significantly greater alcohol knowledge and attitudes significantly less tolerant of heavy patterns of drinking. For example, students in the treatment group answered 41.6% more of the knowledge questions correctly than the control group. When asked about attitude questions similar results were seen with the treatment group showing less tolerant attitudes towards alcohol. For example, with higher scores representing less tolerance to heavy patterns of drinking, when asked if it was ok to drink alcohol even if they're not 21, the treatment group reported less tolerant attitudes with a mean of 6.6 compared to 5.6 of the control group (p<.05).