Psychology Research & herapeutics

Background: Controversy about the efectiveness of abstinence education has posed troubling dilemmas for everyone involved in this area of study. Strident statements about the lack of eicacy of abstinence education have approached the level of bitter ideology. One remedy to lessen this focus on ideology is to provide a broader analysis of program eforts. Method: his paper provides an innovative analysis of a community-based abstinence education program that encompassed multiple schools across several counties that includes thousands of students. he design addressed many of the common deicits in published study; it used hierarchical linear modeling to remedy the design laws of a simple pretest-posttest analysis. Results: Pretests were the principal predictors of posttest scores. Gender was a signiicant predictor of posttest scores. Age however was not a signiicant predictor. An interaction between gender and age was a signiicant predictor although a three-way interaction of gender x age x race was not. Conclusion: Implications for the indings are stated with recommendations for further research. Modeling Abstinence Education Effectiveness