Effectiveness of the Responsible Social Values Program for 6th grade students in one rural school district

The present study reports the effectiveness of an abstinence-based program (the Responsible Social Values Program) designed for 6th grade students in a rural school district. To assess whether this 6-hr. abstinence-based program changed students' knowledge of their sexual development during adolescence, attitudes toward early sexual involvement, intentions regarding sexual involvement, views related to expected consequences of being sexually involved, and views related to expected outcomes of being sexually involved, a pre-experimental one-group, pretest-posttest design was employed. Analysis indicated that the curriculum was effective in terms of improving scores for each of the constructs measured. Immediately after the 6-hr. program, more students stated that they planned to avoid having sex until marriage (70%) than prior to the program (50%). Replication with a control group and longer term follow-up testing is necessary.