The short-term effect of a national prevention model on student drug abuse

This article presents the results of a short-term evaluation of a national drug abuse prevention model entitled the Ombudsman Program (OP). The OP was approved as a national model by the U.S. Department of Education in 1979, and is currently being disseminated nationwide via the National Diffusion Network (NDN). This outcome evaluation research is based on the data generated by the most recent replication of the OP in spring semester 1981 in Charlotte. A quasi-experimental design was used, with 29 students in the treatment group and 30 students in the control group, all at the sixth grade level. Using the "high-risk" Student Attitudinal Inventory (SAI), the following results were obtained: (1) at the conclusion of the OP, a larger proportion of students in the treatment group had favorable attitudes toward their regular school teachers than was the case in the control group; (2) when the students' appraisal of the importance of the program content of the OP is compared to the regular school program, there does not seem to be a significant difference between the two; (3) between the pre- and post-tests, there were positive attitudinal improvements in five out of seven "high risk" factors that are closely related to the frequency of student drug involvement; and (4) the magnitude of these changes, however, is minimal in general and statistically nonsignificant. Finally, a number of recommendations applicable not only to the OP but to other drug education/prevention programs are presented on the basis of the data generated from numerous replications of the OP between 1977 and 1981.