THE IMPACT OF A MARIJUANA AND TRAFFIC SAFETY EDUCATION UNIT ON KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE, AND BEHAVIORAL INTENTION OF STUDENTS IN GRADES 9, 10, AND 11 (DRUGS, TESTING, EVALUATION)

To discourage young people from combining marijuana use and driving, an educational unit, Smoky Joe's Highride was developed. The Unit comprises a film, a student pamphlet, and a guide to help teachers administer the Unit. The purpose of this study was to measure impact of the Unit on the knowledge, attitude, and behavioral intention of students in grades 9 - 11. A 100-item test battery was developed specifically to measure the effect of the Unit.; A national field test of 1,346 geographically distributed students used a pretest-posttest control group design to test the Unit's effectiveness. The sample came from grades 9, 10, and 11, in public and private schools from urban and rural settings. The experimental and control groups were intact classes from the same school or school system.; The findings show that the Unit had significant (.01) impact on the experimental group scores for all three parts of the test battery (knowledge, attitude, and behavioral intention).; Analyses by grade level showed that the ninth grade benefitted more than the higher grades, and might well be the most appropriate grade for the Unit's implementation.; Appendices include the teacher training protocol and full details of the development of the Student Inventory of Knowledge and Attitude Toward Marijuana and Driving, including the final form with answers.