| Child sexual abuse and kidnapping are on the rise and many adults are grappling with the idea of how to arm children with useful information concerning such dangerous situations. Because many programs are already being used in the schools, it is important to try to understand what effects such programs are having on the children who participate in them. The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of one personal safety program on three affective measures of child development.;Measures of anxiety, locus of control, and self-concept were given to first- and fourth-grade students before and after they were exposed to a personal safety program. Classes of comparable first- and fourth-grade students were also given the tests, although they did not receive any personal safety training. Difference scores on all three measures were used to look for changes in children's affective standing before and after they received the treatment.;Nine two-way ANOVA's were used to analyze the effects of the independent variables on the dependent variables. In this study, group, school, grade, and gender were the independent variables. Dependent variables were difference scores (posttest minus pretest) on measures of manifest anxiety, locus of control, and self-concept.;Significance was set at the.05 level. No main effects were found for group, school, grade, or gender. One interactive effect was found and one strong trend occurred. Group by grade had a significant effect on locus of control difference scores (p =.037) and group by gender approached significance on self-concept difference scores (p =.052).;The lack of main effect of group on anxiety difference scores implies that the personal safety information did not adversely affect the children in the study. The interactive effect implies that such information may have differential effects on various groups when it comes to specific areas of affective child development. |
