Evaluating education strategies for adolescent parents
Abstract
Adolescent parenthood is associated with a unique set of disadvantages. High rates of teen pregnancy and childbearing coupled with research documenting the negative outcomes of youthfull childbearing to mothers and infants in terms of medical, social and developmental difficulties has spurred the growth of hundreds of interventions nationwide. Unfortunately, efforts to successfully evaluate these interventions lag well behind program growth. And program evaluations often suffer from severe methodological limitations that make results difficult to interpret. This study helped to improve upon and add to the existing evaluation database by using sound methodology to assess the relative effectiveness of different educational media (videotapes, written materials and the two combined) commonly used in adolescent education programs. It addressed the role that participant levels of academic achievement play in programming effectiveness. This study also explored the interrelationships among different outcome levels, including knowledge, attitudes, behaviors and end results. Eighty-eight primarily primiparous adolescent mothers between 14 and 19 years of age were recruited to participate in a short-term longitudinal parent education program evaluation. Four treatment groups were formed based on the type of education material to which they were exposed: video-only, booklet-only, video and booklet, and a standard treatment control. Between-group orthogonal comparisons were made using either repeated measures analysis of variance or analysis of variance with change scores. Results suggest that the combined media group did not significantly outperform the other three groups on most outcome measures. Stronger support for the effectiveness of the video component alone was found as compared to the booklet-only and control groups. When compared to the control group, those in the booklet-only group demonstrated greater positive behavior change among discipline-related behaviors, while all three program groups demonstrated tendencies toward positive change in feeding-related behaviors relative to the control group. There was little support for the presence of an interaction between the subject characteristic academic achievement and type of program media. There was mixed support for the hypothesized relationships among changes in knowledge, attitudes, behaviors and end results. Of note, increased self-esteem and/or parenting self-confidence were associated with less accurate knowledge and less optimal behavior change. Implications for adolescent parent education programming are discussed.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Powell, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Families & family life|Personal relationships|Sociology|Curricula|Teaching
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