ence" in many school classrooms regarding this major health problem. In other words, if teens were more informed about AIDS and its prevention in their health education classes, there would be reason to expect that transmission of HIV would, at least to some extent, decrease in the population because they will be better informed about how to prevent transmission and less likely to engage in risky behavior.
Thus, the evaluation of textbooks is an important area for educational research because of their influence over students' learning experiences. The evaluation of health education textbooks is important not only because of this general influence over students' learning experiences but also because health education texts--if they are made personally relevant to students---can serve a preventative role in students' actual health/illness levels. These facts serve as the underlying rationale for the proposed research.
The proposed study will evaluate seven high school health education texts for the degree to which they adequately cover: (1) the ten of the major causes of adolescent mortality; (2) the problem of low self-esteem in adolescence; (3) the problem of substance abuse (alcohol/drugs) in adolescence; and (4) the general objectives and concepts of health education. Judgement as to the adequacy of coverage will be made in two ways.
First, the number of actual pages addressing each area of interest will be computed relative to the total number of pages of each text in an effort to assess actual coverage of material. Second, a panel of 15 experts in the field will be asked to review the texts and make judgements regarding their perceptions of the adequacy with which each text covered each of the areas of research interest. In an effort to determine whether texts differ in terms of coverage, the seven reviewed texts will be compared in terms of both amount actual coverage and experts' opinions of the adequacy of covera...