Background/Purpose . The purpose of the study was to examine the effects of a take-home health education program on selected student outcomes. Research demonstrates parents can play an important role in helping children make positive health decisions. Thus, seeking ways to involve a high percentage of parents is an important undertaking.
Method . The program involves four take-home activity books and student incentives. Students take the activity books home and complete the activities with a parent. Students complete the activity book with a parent, show their teacher the contract that they and their parents have signed, and receive that week's incentive. The program was field-tested with fifth graders and their parents from six elementary schools. Classes were randomly assigned to intervention or control conditions. Students in both intervention and control groups completed a pretest questionnaire. The program was implemented in intervention classrooms, students then completed a posttest questionnaire. The student questionnaire addressed demographic variables and asked students to respond to health behavior and behavioral intent items. Complete and matching pretest-posttest data were obtained from 77 intervention and 72 control students.
Analysis/Results . Data were analyzed using factor analysis to confirm the existence of several multi-item factors and analysis of co-variance to determine whether the program made a difference in these factors. Statistically significant changes in favor of the intervention group were found for smoking intent, alcohol use/intent, heart health, healthy eating, self-efficacy, educational expectations/success orientation, and positive action.
Conclusions . These results are encouraging and support the idea of providing health education programming via a parent-child, take-home program.
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