The purpose of this study was to determine whether a media literacy education program taught be teacher to late elementary school students (grades 3-5) positively affected students' critical thinking skills and substance use-related health outcomes.
Media Detective is a 10-lesson elementary school, substance abuse prevention program developed based upon the Message Interpretation Processing model designed to increase children's critical thinking skills about media messages and reduce intent to use tobacco and alcohol products. The purpose of this study was to conduct a short-term randomized controlled trial study to evaluate the effectiveness of Media Detective for achieving these goals.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
679
10-lesson elementary school, media literacy education, substance use prevention program. Each lesson takes approximately 45 minutes to teach and was taught every school day for 2 weeks.
innovation Research & Training
Durham, North Carolina, United States
Intent to alcohol or tobacco products
Time frame: 2 weeks: pretest and posttest
Understanding of the persuasive intent of advertising
Time frame: 2 weeks: pretest and posttest
Media deconstruction skills
Time frame: 2 weeks: pretest and posttest
Interest in alcohol-branded merchandise
Time frame: 2 weeks: pretest and posttest
Self-efficacy to refuse offers to use alcohol or tobacco products
Time frame: 2 weeks: pretest and posttest
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