Comparing Two Multimedia Science of Addiction Courses

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): One of NIDA's long-standing goals has been to provide children and adolescents with accurate and up-to-date information about the scientific bases of substance abuse and the role the brain plays in addiction. However, many of the currently available substance abuse education programs for children and adolescents focus not on science education, but on prevention using life-skills development and drug-refusal skills. Moreover, the effectiveness of many of these programs has not been adequately tested. In terms of science education, African-American students generally do not score as well as their Caucasian peers on standardized tests of science proficiency. However, multimedia programs which include both visual and verbal information, animation, and interactive sequences may be an excellent adjunct to traditional instruction. Although multimedia programs may be designed in many different ways, embedding information within a narrative structure may be more effective than using more traditional didactic approaches. This project seeks to develop a "science of addiction" education curriculum for fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students who will be recruited from a dozen local African American churches. We will create two sets of interactive CD-ROM and supporting workbooks based on the curriculum. One set of materials will present the educational objectives in a fairly straight-forward didactic approach. The other set will embed the lessons within a narrative story-line. We will then deliver the curriculum to children at the participating churches via a three session weekend "camp." We will conduct pre-test, post-test, and four and nine-month follow-ups to evaluate the curriculum's ability to increase students' knowledge of the scientific bases for substance abuse. Additionally, we will examine the relative effectiveness of presenting the material via either a didactic or narrative approach.