Through a combination of pilot study, consultation, and field-testing, an instrument was developed to evaluate the major content areas in the curriculum of a community-based family life education program: parent/child communication, peer influence, family values, self-efficacy, sexuality knowledge, and high-risk behaviors. The wording, format, and question content were structured to be appropriate developmentally for male and female early adolescents J0 through 14 years of age in diverse sociocultural communities in Los Angeles County. Age-related developmental issues facing early adolescents, combined with the ethnic diversity in the county, created serious challenges to the development of a valid, reliable, and relevant instrument for evaluating the effectiveness of an adolescent family life education program. An instrument with some stable and internally consistent components was developed through the key processes of pilot testing and field-testing with focus groups from the target population of ethnically diverse early adolescents.
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