ACHMI project

PERSUASIVE GOAL We began this project to create a website to convince Alabama teenagers to enroll in the Relationship Smarts Plus program. Through careful research and application of persuasive theory, we have prepared a website which will cater to the needs of the Alabama Community Healthy Marriage Initiative while entertaining and persuading teenagers.

LITERATURE REVIEW The Alabama Community Healthy Marriage Initiative (ACHMI) is a program designed to promote healthy relationships and marriage throughout Alabama. In the fall of 2006, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Family Assistance provided Auburn University and its partners a 5-year grant to expand the work of ACHMI (handout). ACHMI has brought together many groups to support its cause, including the Human Development and Family Studies Department at Auburn University, the Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention/The Children’s Trust Fund, and the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, as well as a network of public, non-profit, and faith-based organizations (handout).

ACHMI strives to increase public awareness of the importance of healthy relationships and marriages for children, family and community well-being (website).

Evidence shows that good relationships within families foster healthier, happier children, who tend to do better academically, have a positive sense of self, have better social skills and be physically healthier. Adults also benefit from healthy relationships, they are more likely to contribute to their communities, are more nurturing parents, and more reliable workers (handout).

ACHMI has created curriculum for youth, non-married parents, pre-marital couples, stepfamilies, and married couples (website). They are continually increasing access to these courses and other healthy relationship resources for Alabama citizens.

They offer five educational programs through their community partners, including Basic Training for Couples: Black Marriage Education, Mastering the Magic of Love, Relationship Smarts Plus, Smart Steps for Stepfamilies, and Together We Can: Caring for My Family (website).

Relationship Smarts Plus (RS+) is a youth course consisting of 13 one-hour lessons for teens in grades 7-12 (website). RS+ uses group activities, hands-on activities, and media to engage teens in the topics of love, dating, breaking up, unhealthy relationships, sex and communication skills. The course begins with lessons of selfawareness and future orientation before moving into romantic relationships. Although the course is pro-abstinence, RS+ aims to look beyond avoiding STDs and pregnancy, to the context of sexuality in relationships, and to let teens know that sex should have meaning. It focuses on reversing misinformation about healthy relationships, while showing teens the economic, social and personal benefits of a healthy marriage (course content).

The curriculum is currently being taught through public school health classes and various community organizations, and is showing positive results in participants.

Surveys of participants show an increase in knowledge about relationship concepts, understanding relationship abuse, recognizing unhealthy communication patterns, employing healthy dating strategies, understanding love and intimacy and preparing for the future (PDF).

AUDIENCE ANAYSIS RATIONALE To further our research, we conducted an audience analysis of Alabama teenagers on attitudes and behaviors associated with relationships, personal issues, events and websites. The results of the survey helped us decide what needed to be on the website and how to make information most effective. Prior to conducting the survey, we hoped to find information consistent with similar national surveys and ACHMI research, but that would give us a more local, in-depth point of view.

METHOD SUBJECTS: We tested a group of Auburn High School students in tenth through twelfth grades. We surveyed 39 students, 20 female and 19 male. Since this is a pretty even split, it is reasonable to assume the results would be consistent to a larger group of students the same age. Unfortunately, the students surveyed were all from the Auburn area and a slightly different age than our target audience of eighth through tenth graders.

However, these results still provide us with useful information.

INSTRUMENT: The survey we produced contained 10 questions, including open-ended, yes/no, multiple choice, and ranking questions. These questions were created from information we researched and from questions that we thought were unanswered by the research we had.

PROCEDURE: The surveys were distributed during first and second period physical education classes at Auburn High School on Friday, April 3, 2009. Participants were asked to fill out the surveys completely and honestly.

RESULTS

When asked on a scale of one to ten how important building strong relationships is, male respondents answered an average of 6.89, while females answered an average of 8.65. When asked if strong relationships in high school will help prepare them for life, 74 percent of males answered yes, while 26 percent answered no, and 95 percent of females answered yes, while only 5 percent answered no. When asked how much parents and teachers influence their behavior on a scale of one to five, males average response was 3.1 and females average response was 3.6.

When asked who they felt most comfortable talking about personal issues with, males answered friends (48 percent), family (29 percent), nobody (15 percent), and girlfriend (8 percent). Females answered friends (62 percent), family (21 percent), boyfriend (13 percent), and nobody (4 percent). When asked to rank the group that was most important to them, males ranked mom and dad, friends, girlfriend, siblings then teachers. Females ranked mom and dad, siblings, friends, boyfriend then teachers. When asked to rank what events in high school are most important, males answered sporting events, parties, dances and exams, while females answered sporting events, prom, homecoming, graduation and lunch.

When asked if they would attend a class that talked about building strong relationships, 21 percent of males said yes, while 79 percent said no, and 35 percent of females said yes, and 79 percent said no. When asked if they would attend if their friends when with them, 89 percent of males said yes, and 11 percent said no, while 70 percent of females said yes, and 30 percent said no.

When asked what would attract you to a website about building strong relationships, the most common responses were success stories from other teenagers,

ability to ask questions and get good answers, videos, graphics, tips, pictures, a good design, real life stories and situations, and being able to interact with other people.

DISCUSSION From these results we can gather that family and friends are the most important and influential groups in a teenager’s life. The most important events in high school are social events, and the people teenagers are most likely to go to with their personal issues are their friends. Since peers are such an important part of a teenager’s life, we realized that a large part of our website needed to focus on peer to peer relationships. It was especially important for us to realize that teens are much more likely to attend the Relationship Smarts class if they were with friends.

We also learned that the research we found on effective teen websites contained many of the same tools that the participants said they would enjoy. From this information, we know what would be most likely get teens to visit the site, and thus, persuade the teens to sign up for the class.

PERSUASIVE STRATEGIES CREDIBILITY We wanted visitors to the site to trust and believe our message, so we aimed to prove ACHMI’s credibility. We included a link to view the course teachers with their names and professional titles, which creates extrinsic credibility, because without ever speaking, the teachers will be credible because of their degrees and perceived knowledge on the subject. Also, we wanted to further the website’s intrinsic credibility by providing a live chat option. The chat feature would be an instant messaging system in which teens would be able to speak to experts on teen relationships, which would include adults and

graduate teaching assistants working with ACHMI, as well as members of the teen advisory board. Since the teens will be able to ask questions on any information presented on the site or ask further questions about RS+, the presentation of the message is more credible because it is subject to the teens’ scrutiny.

GROUP DYNAMICS In researching effective teen website tools, we found that most teens like interactive elements, including polls, quizzes and message boards (web article). We took this information and developed a quiz section of the website which incorporated the theory of group dynamics, particularly social comparison. Leon Festinger developed the concept of social comparison to argue that “we tend to evaluate how good our own accomplishments are by comparing ourselves to others” (book). We used a true/false quiz from the Relationship Smarts course content to help teens determine if the course would be useful for them. The course uses the quiz to dispel popular dating myths, but we used it to show teens that their knowledge of healthy relationships is lacking. After completing the quiz, teens are shown the correct answers to the questions, and told that teens who didn’t know the correct answer for the questions benefited from the RS+ classes, and once participants completed the course, they were able to answer the questions correctly.

Sandy Williams, the State Public Awareness Coordinator for ACHMI, stressed the importance of addressing peer to peer relationships, so we created a message board where teens could communicate with others and initiate their own topics for social comparison (interview). Teens could ask each other about their relationship experiences, and see if their own are in line with other teens. Charles Jackson, the public relations

coordinator for ACHMI, suggested that the site address the topics of upcoming prom and graduation, which could be possible topics for the message board (interview).

Jeremy Walden, Relationship Smarts teacher, suggested that we employ use of participant testimony and statistics on course enrollment as a mode of social proof (interview). When teens see how others have benefited, or how many other teens have completed the course, they will be more likely to think they need or would benefit from the class, and thus sign up.

ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL We employed the Elaboration Likelihood Model in several ways throughout the site, hoping to get visitors to the website to be drawn in by peripheral cues and then motivate them receive our message for central processing. From the suggestion of Jackson, we included several video and sound clips on our site (interview). Jackson provided videos and public service announcements created by the Teen Advisory Board, which we included on the site, along with information produced by Teen Advisory Board to explain who they are, to show teenagers that their peers are also working on this project, which would draw them in because of source likeability (current site). We use repetition of contact information and the pros of attending a RS+ course to help the chances of comprehension. Also, we hope that because relationships are important to most teens, they will realize they will be accountable for information on relationships, and the RS+ class would be a good place to learn about them.

YALE APPROACH We used the Yale Approach’s four components of persuasion, attention, comprehension, acceptance, and retention, to encourage teens to enroll in the course. To

get the visitors of the website to focus on the information, we grabbed their attention with videos, sound clips and information pertinent to teenagers’ relationships. To help with comprehension, we encourage participation in quizzes and message boards, and stating the positive effects of the class on its participants. Acceptance of our message would translate into teens signing up for the class. To help facilitate acceptance, we repeated their need for the class and participant approval, and made it easy to sign up for a class on the website. The combination of attention grabbing elements and useful information will help the website’s visitors retain how important the Relationship Smarts class would be to them.

SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY In the social learning theory, we employ vicarious reinforcement and instructions, rules or communication. The testimonies from participants serve as vicarious reinforcement because visitors to the site will see that the knowledge gained from the class was a positive reward of attending the class, and believe that if they sign up for a class they will also get this positive reward. Since we cannot directly reinforce or extinguish the act of going to the class, we communicate throughout the site that relationships are important and by attending the Relationship Smarts classes, they will be able to more effectively understand and work in relationships.

SOCIAL JUDGMENT THEORY Since teenagers see relationships as important, we constructed the website to reinforce and further that idea. According to the social judgment theory, since we attempt to appeal to positions inside the latitude of acceptance, we are likely to persuade the teens to sign up for the course. If teens assimilate our message and sign up for the

course, that means that they accept our message that Relationship Smarts can help them obtain useful relationship skills.