EVALUATION OF SOUL CITY SCHOOL AND MASS MEDIA LIFE SKILLS EDUCATION AMONG JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL LEARNERS IN SOUTH AFRICA

Social Behavior and Personality, 2003 by Peltzer, Karl, Promtussananon, Supa

Table 4 shows the different Soul City media sources in relation to different outcome variables.

Soul City school life skills exposure was positively associated with puberty/body knowledge, HIV knowledge, HIV risk perception, and condom use at last sex.

Soul City television series exposure was positively associated with condom use, HIV, and contraceptive knowledge, attitudes towards people with HIV/AIDS, self-efficacy, and delay in sex.

Soul Buddyz television series was positively associated with condom use knowledge, attitudes towards people with HIV/AIDS, self-efficacy, and delay in sex.

Soul City radio programs were positively associated with attitudes towards people with HIV/AIDS.

Soul City newspaper materials were positively associated with condom use knowledge, self-efficacy, and delay in sex.

DISCUSSION

The study found that Soul City school life skills exposure was positively associated with puberty/body knowledge, HIV/AIDS knowledge, HIV risk perception, and condom use at last sex. The Soul City life skills mass media had mainly a significant positive impact on condom use knowledge, attitudes towards people with HIV/AIDS, self-efficacy, and delaying sex. Soul City school life skills seem to have had some positive outcomes over the short-term exposure to life skills (since program had just started) and longer-term exposure to Soul City mass media (television and radio series, and printed media have been in circulation for a number of years).

Kim, Stanton, Li, Dickersin, and Galbraith (1997) reviewed the effectiveness of 40 adolescent AIDS risk reduction interventions and found that a majority of studies found a positive intervention impact (88% of studies assessing changes in knowledge, 58% changes in attitude, and 73% in condom use).

This study found lower frequency of watching Soul City or Soul buddyz series among learners from rural as opposed to urban schools. Soul City is a program for adults while Soul buddyz is a program for children. Shisana and Simbayi (2002) suggest addressing these limitations by investing in community level communication systems that allow for interactive communication, and community-based health services.

LIMITATIONS

The life skills evaluation was conducted retroactively and by self-report. The fact that no preintervention data existed made it more difficult to conclusively attribute observations to the program. Data collection took place while the intervention was in most cases still going on, which means that the longer term (or sustainable) impact of the program was not investigated.

Over the longer term, research using longitudinal pre-post designs need to be conducted to investigate stronger evidence and the sustained and longer term impact of the Soul City life skills program and mass media edutainment, which, if sustained, seems to have the potential to effect powerful change in a future generation of youth and adults.

REFERENCES

Baue, R., & Steinberg, M. (1995). The focus group method in a formative evaluation of a South African high school sexuality education programme. British Journal of Family Planning, 21(2), 71-75.