The Korean male adult smoking rate is gradually on the decrease, but the smoking rate among women and the youth is growing rapidly. In particular, adolescent smoking has showed fast increase over the last decade, and the underage smoking is emerging ...
The Korean male adult smoking rate is gradually on the decrease, but the smoking rate among women and the youth is growing rapidly. In particular, adolescent smoking has showed fast increase over the last decade, and the underage smoking is emerging as one of the grave social problems, as it's reported that in the case of boy students, senior high school students who smoke number 41.6 percent and smoker age is getting lower than ever. Furthermore, it's very difficult to have smokers quit smoking, and school is requested to make various efforts to prevent nonsmoker students from being hooked on smoking.
The specific research items for these are:
1. Is there any difference in knowledge of smoking between the educated and the non-educated?
2. Is there any difference in curiosity for smoking between the educated and the non-educated?
3. Is there any difference in attitude toward legal punishment against smoking between the educated and the non-educated?
4. Is there any difference in their will to reject smoking advice between the educated and the non-educated?
5. Is there any difference in view of the effect of a various kinds of antismoking education programs between the educated and non-educated?
The purpose of this study was to examine the smoking knowledge of first graders in middle school, their changing curiosity for smoking, their will to reject smoking advice, and their view of related legal punishment and the effect of various kinds of antismoking education programs.
The subjects in this study were the students in their first year from two middle schools in Jungrang-gu, Seoul. 12 classes from one school were selected as an experimental group, and 12 classes from the other were organized into a control group. The antismoking education was offered from July 2001 to the experimental group only, and required data were gathered in March 2002.
For data analysis, SPSS WIN 11.0(Statistical Package for the Social Science Windows) was utilized. To find out the gap between the two groups, cross tabs and frequency analysis were conducted. The level of significance was set at p<.05.
The findings of this study could be described as below:
First, the knowledge about smoking and secondhand smoking was significantly different between the groups. They believed that children whose parents smoke are more susceptible to a cold or asthma, and that pregnant female smokers are more likely to have a miscarriage or give birth to an under weight child. As women smokers are increasing, it's needed to provide self-esteem programs for girl students not to be tempted by smoking. Second, their curiosity for smoking didn't significantly vary. Third, the two groups had a significantly different opinion about the legal punishment against smoking. Most of the students thought smoking should be banned at public places. Fourth, their will to reject smoking advice wasn't significantly different, but most of them were willing to advise their friend not to smoke in case he or she does it. Fifth, their outlook on the effectiveness of antismoking education programs differed significantly. Experimental programs, such as videotapes about diseases, experiments and photo exhibits, appeared to be effective.
The above-mentioned findings suggested that among various kinds of antismoking education programs for the first graders in middle school, videotapes about smoking-related diseases, goldfish experiment and photo exhibition contributed to improving their smoking knowledge, changing their attitude toward smoking, enhancing their view of the need of legal discipline, and developing their sense of sanitation. Accordingly, elementary and secondary schools need to prepare workable antismoking education programs for lower graders to offer well-organized education. At the same time, it's required to encourage students to have the right understanding of smoking and keep away from it on their own.