Evaluation of the<i>What's Real: Myths &amp; Facts about Marriage</i>Curriculum: Differential Impacts of Gender*

Gardner, Scott P.; Bridges, James G.; Johnson, A.K.; Pace, Hilary

doi:10.1080/01494929.2016.1157120

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…That is, assuming participants have a good experience in RE, they may be more open to seeking other services currently or in the future. In support of this view, couples who participated in premarital education were more likely to seek future help (Williamson, Trail, Bradbury, & Karney, 2014), and youth who participated in literacy education reported more positive attitudes about getting relationship counseling (Gardner, Bridges, Johnson, & Pace, 2016). Such optimism is important because for many people-especially lower income couples-who experience mental and relationship health service disparities, this may be their first experience with the helping professions.…”

Section: Targeting Relationship Educationmentioning

confidence: 98%

Couple and relationship education.

Markman¹,

Halford²,

Hawkins³

2019

APA Handbook of Contemporary Family Psychology: Family Therapy and Training (Vol. 3).

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David and Vera Mace often discussed the "three essentials of a couples' primary coping system": commitment, communication, and dealing with inevitable conflict and anger. Now we know how best to incorporate those skills in relationship education.-Bill Coffin, former marriage and relationship educator with the U.S. Navy and Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (personal communication, October 27, 2016) Couple relationship education (RE) teaches skills and principles associated with a stable, healthy relationship and marriage with the aim of improving or enhancing relationships and preventing future distress. Evidencebased RE draws upon the research on what influences couple relationship satisfaction and stability, and uses approaches to RE that have been evaluated in welldesigned research trials (Halford, Markman, & Stanley, 2008). In this chapter, we review the similarities and differences between RE and couple therapy; the history of RE; who accesses and who provides RE; the effects of evidence-based RE; issues facing the field; and a discussion of challenges, issues, and recommendations for future practice and research. Although we focus on more traditional couple approaches to RE, we also cover individual approaches as well, as they are growing rapidly. COUPLE RELATIONSHIP EDUCATION AND COUPLE THERAPYCouple RE is intended to improve and enrich couple relationships and help couples develop and sustain a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship (Markman & Ritchie, 2015). Evidence-based RE usually is brief, most commonly including a 12-to 14-hour curriculum that teaches key relationship knowledge and skills (Halford, 2011), although some programs have ranged up to 60 program hours (e.g., Wood et al., 2014) or have been as short as 2 hours Braithwaite, Lambert, Fincham, & Pasley, 2010;Tonelli, Pregulman, & Markman, 2016). Traditional RE usually has a relatively fixed curriculum and most often is provided in a multicouple group format (Markman & Ritchie, 2015), but it is also being offered over the Internet (Kalinka, Fincham, & Hirsch, 2012;Loew et al., 2012; www.lovetakeslearning.com). RE often is provided by people with training in the specific RE program they are offering, but who do not necessarily have training in couple therapy or other specialist psychol ogist skills. Evidence-based couple therapy is typically more extensive than RE, with evidencebased approaches typically involving 20 or more sessions of couple therapy (Christensen, Dimidjian,

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Section: Targeting Relationship Educationmentioning

confidence: 98%

Couple and relationship education.

Markman¹,

Halford²,

Hawkins³

2019

APA Handbook of Contemporary Family Psychology: Family Therapy and Training (Vol. 3).

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…They tend to address general relationship topics that can apply to many types of relationships, such as knowing what to look for in a romantic partner, understanding the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships, developing strategies for avoiding teen dating violence and abuse, and improving communication and conflict management skills (Scott & Huz, 2020;Scott et al, 2017). Some programs address the benefits of marriage and what makes marriages successful (Gardner & Boellaard, 2007;Gardner et al, 2004Gardner et al, , 2016. Other programs are offered as voluntary afterschool programs or in community-based settings.…”

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confidence: 99%

The impacts of a high school healthy marriage and relationship education program

Goesling

Alamillo

2023

Family Relations

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ObjectiveTo assess the 1‐year impacts of a healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) program for high school students.BackgroundResearch on HMRE programming for youth has found that programs can improve youth's relationship skills, attitudes, and knowledge around the time the program ends. However, there is less evidence on whether these impacts are sustained over time or when providers do not have enough time to deliver the full program.MethodA three‐arm cluster randomized trial involving 1,862 students from two schools. The two intervention groups received either a 12‐lesson HMRE curriculum or a shortened eight‐lesson version of the same curriculum. Students completed surveys at baseline and 1 year later.ResultsStudents in all three groups reported similar levels of relationship skills, attitudes, and knowledge for 9 of the 10 outcomes examined at the one‐year follow up. For the one exception, students offered the 12‐lesson curriculum were more likely than students in the control group to disagree that feelings of love are enough to sustain a happy marriage.ConclusionWe found limited evidence of sustained impacts and no evidence of an effect from shortening the curriculum.ImplicationsOffering HMRE to high school students might plant the seeds of healthy relationships, but more programming will probably be needed to sustain the types of short‐term impacts found in prior research.

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