Dutch adolescents from lower secondary education levels are more likely to engage in alcohol abuse than adolescents from higher education levels. Moreover, they start doing so at an earlier age. For to the Dutch government, health education materials are an important part of their overall prevention approach. However, the materials that are currently available were originally developed for the general population of secondary education students, and therefore less suitable to this particular target group.
Low educated students generally possess less processing capacity compared to students from higher education levels, which influences their ability to process the education materials. According to the exiting literature, factors related to the format in which the information is presented to the students (for example through informative texts or narratives) could influence the ability to process the information, and, subsequently, the effectiveness of health education materials. However, this was never tested among students with low education levels.
In his dissertation, Simon Zebregs therefore examined the influence of various presentation formats of education materials about alcohol consumption on information processing and effectiveness among low educated adolescents. His research provides insight into how presentation formats can be used to optimize the effectiveness of health education materials for low educated students as much as possible. The research in this project had been conducted in collaboration with the development team of the Trimbos Institute’s Healthy school and drugs program.
Simon Zebregs will defend his dissertation on 28 January 2016
S. Zebregs, Is it How We Tell Them About Alcohol? The Role of Presentation Formats in Health Education Materials for Lower Educated Students. Supervisors Prof. P.C. Neijens and Prof. S.J.H.M. van den Putte.
Dissertation: http://dare.uva.nl/record/1/507820