Abstract:
The purpose of this quasi-experimental research was to examine the effects of a life skill development program on amphetamine abuse prevention behavior in early secondary school students. The concept of life skill development (WHO, 1994) was used as the conceptual framework of the study. Forty-eight Mathayomsuksa 2 students were recruited from two schools, and the match-pair technique was employed to assign 24 students into the experimental group and the other 24 into the control group The subjects in the control group received usual knowledge on amphetamine abuse prevention, where as the experimental group received the life skill development program for five times, each lasting one to one and a half hours, totally six hours and 30 minutes. The experimental instrument consisted of a teaching plan, documents, scenarios, pamphlets, and VCDs on amphetamine, as well as games which were used to lead to development of each skill. The program was examined by a panel of experts to ensure content validity before actual implementation. The data collection instruments in this study were composed of amphetamine abuse prevention behavior questionnaire, critical thinking skill questionnaire, decision making skill questionnaire, problem solving skill questionnaire, and refusal skill questionnaire. Cronbachs alpha coefficient revealed that the reliability of these questionnaire was .72, .74, .79, .81 and .83, respectively. Data were collected before the experiment started, one week after the experiment ended, and at a four-week follow up. Repeated measure ANOVA was used to analyze the data collected from the experimental group, and independent t-test was used to determine the differences between the experimental group and the control group.
Major findings were as follows:
1. The mean post-test scores of amphetamine abuse prevention behavior of the experimental group at one-week and four-week follow ups were significantly higher than the mean pre-test score with statistical significance (p < .05).
2. The mean post-test scores of amphetamine abuse prevention behavior of the experimental group at one-week and four-week follow ups were significantly higher than those of the control group with statistical significance (p < .05)