An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Media Literacy Education for Substance Abuse Prevention in High School Students

Despite advances in research on the effects of media literacy education for increasing critical thinking skills and decreasing risky health behaviors in children, less is known about the effects of media literacy education on adolescents, in general, and for the purpose of substance use prevention in high school.  The present study was designed to address these gaps by utilizing a randomized controlled group design in order to examine the efficacy of a new media literacy education program, the Media Worldprogram, on high school students' substance use behaviors and related cognitions. 

High schools agreeing to participate in the study (N=13) were randomly assigned to the intervention (n=7) or control group (n=6).  Seventeen teachers across the schools agreed to participate and were invited to participate with all of their high school classrooms (N=41 classrooms).  Preliminary analyses were conducted on data collected from a subset of the students (n=202) in the classrooms taught by the intervention (n=3) and control teachers (n=3). 

Analyses were conducted using SAS PROC MIXED to account for within-classroom heterogeneity with teacher serving as the repeated variable and allowing for random school and teacher within school effects.  In addition, pretest scores for each outcome variable were included as prediction variables; therefore, outcome variable means are reported as adjusted posttest least square mean scores. 

The preliminary analyses revealed that participation in the Media World program resulted in several significant positive outcomes for adolescents.  At posttest, students in the intervention group reported more media literacy education knowledge, less belief that substance use has positive consequences, and greater self-efficacy to refuse substance use.

Trends in the analyses indicate that when data from the entire sample is analyzed, we will likely find additional significant difference between the groups with the intervention group demonstrating more sophisticated critical thinking skills related to media deconstruction; less identification with substance use portrayals in the media; and less perceived realism and desirability of media messages about substance use.  Additional analyses will examine media-related skills and cognitions as mediators of the effectiveness of the program on substance use.

This results of this randomized controlled trial provides evidence that media literacy education can be an effective strategy for changing outcomes related to the prevention of substance use behaviors in high school students.