Effectiveness of adolescent relationship and sexuality program in modifying level of assertiveness, global, social and body self-esteem in grade nine students

Parlee, Cindy C. (1990) Effectiveness of adolescent relationship and sexuality program in modifying level of assertiveness, global, social and body self-esteem in grade nine students. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Self-esteem has been considered as central to the social, psychological and academic development of adolescents. Recently, several grade 9 classes in schools in St. John's and surrounding areas have implemented a program which focuses on improving various aspects of self-esteem. Entitled 'Adolescence: Relationships and Sexuality', this program was designed to introduce and explore issues such as communication, self-concept, human sexuality and interpersonal relationships. The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not the implementation of this program does aid in increasing social and body self-esteem, assertiveness skills, and self-acceptance in grade 9 students as compared to a control group of students who were taking the standard program entitled 'Reverence For Life and Family'. -- Results reveal significant group by initial score interactions for measures of self-acceptance, and social self-esteem (p<.05 and p<.02, respectively). This indicates that relative to scores obtained from subjects in the control group, experimental subjects with high initial scores increased at post-test, whereas those with low initial scores decreased relatively at post-test. A group by sex by initial score three-way interaction (p<.02) was obtained on the measure of body self-esteem. This reveals an average decrease in body self-esteem for both control and experimental groups, the effect being greatest for high initial scorers and particularly for female subjects in the control group; low initial scorers did not show decreased scores, the female control group subjects who were initially low on body self-esteem actually showed increased scores. No significant findings were obtained on the measure of assertiveness. -- Explanations such as lack of preparatory skills necessary to benefit from such a program, mode with which the program was offered, the length of the program, and the level of open discussion of issues involved in the program have been offered to account for the findings. However, although the interactions were significant, they account for less than 3% of the variance in self-esteem scores. This indicates that adolescent self-acceptance, social and body self-esteem are not greatly affected by the program examined in this study. Although the program may result in significant modifications that were not measured in this study, it appears as though modification of adolescent self-esteem may require more intensive development of conceptual skills training that is extended over a longer period of time.

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