This study examined changes of elementary school students' knowledge and attitudes toward AIDS after AIDS health educational programs were conducted. The experiment was executed from November the 28th, 2001 to February the 6th, 2002. Study examinees ...
This study examined changes of elementary school students' knowledge and attitudes toward AIDS after AIDS health educational programs were conducted. The experiment was executed from November the 28th, 2001 to February the 6th, 2002. Study examinees were 156 fifth year students of 2 elementary schools located at SeongNam City, KyeongKi-Do. 78 students were included in an experimental group, and 78 students belonged to a control group. It was a Quasi-Experimental Study that used a nonequivalent pretest-posttest control group design. The study procedures are as follows; a preliminary inspection was implemented, AIDS health educational program was conducted for the experimental group 3 times(40 minutes for one time) for 2 weeks, so that the total amount of time was 120 minutes. The post-examination was conducted by a questionnaire survey 2 weeks and 9 weeks after the program was finished. The measurement instrument was the questionnaire developed by Yun, Hyun Sik(1997) and modified by this researcher; 8 questions were concerning general characters, 25 questions asked knowledge of AIDS, 17 questions examined students' attitudes toward AIDS. Collected data were analyzed with SPSS program package, the confidence coefficient of the instrument was set to Cronbach's alpha value, x2-test and t-test were applied to examine examinees' homogeneity, hypotheses were examined by Repeated Measure ANOVA.
Findings of study are as follows;
1) Male students occupied 56.4% out of all examinees, and 43.6% was female students. 76.9% of them had religious faith. Parents of 88.5% and 76.3%, respectively, graduated from universities, 64.7% thought that their families' financial state was 'below average', 72.4% thought that they attained 'below average' level of school scores. 28.2% had experiences of watching lecherous materials, only 1.3% took AIDS education.
Any significant differences were not shown in general characters of both experimental group and control group, therefore, both groups were proved to be homogeneous. The degrees of knowledge of AIDS were not different significantly, before the AIDS education. But the degree of experimental group's attitudes toward AIDS(2.54 points) was significantly higher(t=2.376, p=.019) than that of control group's attitudes(2.41 points); experimental group's attitudes toward AIDS were more affirmative than those of control group, before the AIDS educational programs were conducted.
2) Hypothesis 1 ; the hypothesis 1 is "The points of AIDS knowledge are different at each moment, before conducting the educational program, 2 weeks after conducting the educational program, and 9 weeks after conducting the educational program". After the above hypothesis was examined, the findings are as follows; interactive actions were shown among different periods in both groups(F=267.241, p=.000); statistical differences were shown according to periods(F=367.376, p=.000); significant differences were shown according to groups(F=251.731, p=.000). Therefore, hypothesis 1 was approved.
3) Hypothesis 2 ; the hypothesis 2 is "The points of attitudes toward AIDS are different at each moment, before conducting the educational program, 2 weeks after conducting the educational program, and 9 weeks after conducting the educational program". It was closely examined, and the findings are that significant differences between two groups were found, whereas any interactions were not shown between two groups(F=3.753, p=.055), after controlling the attitude scores that showed differences before the education by covariable, and examining the results. And any statistically significant differences were not shown according to period(F=.637, p=.426), so that this hypothesis 2 was rejected.
4) The changes of knowledge about and attitudes toward AIDS were examined according to general characters of examinees. Experimental group and control group were not statistically different from each other, according to general characters mostly. Among the students of experimental group, students of 'the financial condition of below average'(13.08 points) showed more knowledge-changes than those of 'the high level of financial condition'(10.60 points), which means a statistical difference(t=-2.527, p=.014). Therefore, it was proved that the AIDS education programs worked.
The above study tells that the AIDS health education for elementary school students made their knowledge and attitudes change significantly, but the education was not effective for changing students' attitudes. Elementary school students need more systematic and continual AIDS health education.