Changes in Teachers' Attitudes toward Drugs Associated with a “Social Seminar” Course

Abstract

Recent reports have seemed to indicate that drug education programs centered around the provision of information about drugs stimulate increased experimentation. An attempt was made to assess the attitude change of teachers involved in a drug education program which had as part of its content, “The Social Seminar”, a National Institute of Mental Health film and activity series about drugs. Data analyses indicated that there are four distinct factors among teachers' perceptions of different drugs; “hard” drugs; “soft” drugs; alcohol; and “household” drugs. As a result of the drug education course, the teachers tended to rate 1) alcohol more dangerous; 2) the soft drugs less dangerous; 3) the hard and household drugs as about the same as in the pre-test. Drugs were seen as more dangerous to people generally than to the rater himself.