Undergraduate Research at Virginia Tech

Rule the Road; Prevention, Intervention, Abstention

By Sarah Larkins, communication major, and Sarah Hawes, biological sciences major

The safety and well-being of high-school students has always been a concern for both parents and school officials, who put their trust every year in various programs meant to discourage high-risk behaviors among students. Despite the popularity of such programs, their effectiveness had never actually been measured against other interventions. Concerned over this lack of scientific research, Ryan Smith, now a junior in psychology, set out to determine whether these programs were worthy of such confidence.

Smith's interest began during high school when he was elected president of his school's Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) club. Put in charge of selecting and carrying out school-wide projects to reduce such high-risk student behaviors as drinking and drug use, Smith had always felt disheartened by the lack of reliable information on the programs. "Each and every year, thousands of individuals assigned the critical duty of program selection are forced to implement programs based on nothing more than face validity," said Smith.

Once at Virginia Tech, Smith immediately took advantage of the research opportunities afforded undergraduates. He approached his professor, Scott Geller, after his very first Introductory Psychology class to express his interest and enthusiasm. This direct approach landed Smith on Geller's research team, the Center for Applied Behavior Analysis. Within his first two weeks as a freshman at Virginia Tech, Smith had the opportunity to fill the information gap he had noticed in high school.

He began by lining up schools that used different methods to reduce high-risk behaviors on prom night and that were willing to participate in the project. In order to do that, Smith had to speak with teachers, principals, and other personnel to persuade them to participate, and he had to get approval from school officials to distribute and collect surveys at appropriate times according to each school's prom date. On top of all that, Smith was in Blacksburg and the schools were hundreds of miles away!

"In 2004, we ran a pilot study with one high school. This allowed us to streamline our methodology and get an overall assessment of high-risk prom night behaviors," said Smith. "Last year (2005), we dealt directly with seven schools. Unfortunately, only four of those seven were able to give their students surveys."

The four methods used by the schools are:

1. school-wide assemblies with an anti-drug message
2. school-sponsored, drug-free after-prom parties
3. Nationwide Insurance's Prom Promise® program, and
4. the None for the Road program.

Nationwide Prom Promise gives students a small gift in exchange for signing a pledge card stating they will not drink or do drugs. None for the Road arranges for students to drive a golf cart around a traffic cone course while wearing FatalVision goggles that simulate alcohol impairment. Smith had to construct surveys specifically designed to assess the scope and effect of each of these very different programs.

"The results were the most surprising part of the entire project," Smith said.

The most successful program in reducing high-risk behavior was a school-sponsored after-prom party, followed by a school-wide assembly with an anti-drug message, both of which significantly reduced the amount of high-risk behavior on prom night. Smith's research found that Prom Promise, used by 3,434 schools each year, did not have a significant impact on high-risk behavior. Startlingly, students who attended None for the Road events reported being more likely to consume alcohol on prom night!

"It took a great deal of work from a wide range of individuals to make this study happen, and the results could not have been any more instrumental in guiding future program implementation," Smith said. "For the first time, schools can have faith that the prevention and intervention programs they chose can truly save the lives of their students," he said. "With a staggering number of youth lives lost each year to alcohol, schools can finally feel confident they are implementing programs that are truly effective in making their student body safer."

Findings such as these will be indispensable as schools decide which programs to use.

Smith plans to expand upon and substantiate his results from the four schools. He is currently advising the seven Virginia high schools he contacted originally on prevention and intervention programs to reduce high-risk behaviors on prom night. "It looks like six of these seven will be distributing surveys this year," Smith reports. "This year's objective is primarily to replicate last year's study. However, we are making small changes in the research design to try to improve the effectiveness of None for the Road and Nationwide Insurance's Prom Promise."

As a result of his research involvement, he has been accepted as a Virginia Tech representative to attend the Atlantic Coast Conference's first annual Meeting of the Minds Conference designed to showcase undergraduate student research at ACC schools.

Check out psychology professor Scott Geller's research group, the Center for Applied Behavioral Systems.