Effect of a nutrition education program, "learning by teaching", on adolescents' knowledge and beliefs

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of a health education program on a group of adolescents' cognition (knowledge of sugar and caries (SUCA), knowledge of sugar and nutrition (SUNU), and beliefs about susceptibility (SUSC) and self-efficacy (SELF]. The strategy used was to make 14-yr-old students learn about nutrition and dental health through teaching 10-yr-old students this topic. A pretest-posttest non-equivalent control group design was used. The experimental group consisted of four 8th grade classes from two schools and the reference group of four 8th grade classes from two comparable schools. The data was collected prior to, immediately after, and, for the experimental group, 2 months after the program implementation. Analysis of covariance with pretest measures as covariates showed no effect of the program on SUCA, SUSC, and SELF, while a significant interaction effect of study group and gender was found on SUNU. Neither social class of mother nor caries activity had a significant interaction effect on knowledge and beliefs during the course. Future health education research should focus upon the effect of different educational approaches addressing beliefs more salient to adolescents.