The effects of narrative versus non-narrative information in school health education about alcohol drinking for low educated adolescents

Abstract

BackgroundTraditionally most health education materials are written in an expository non-narrative format. Scholars have argued that the effectiveness of materials may increase when these texts are replaced by narrative texts, and that the non-narrative texts should be replaced by narrative texts. However, no previous studies have tested these claims in the context of school health education for low educated adolescents. This study aims to do so for an existing preventive health education intervention about alcohol for low educated adolescents. Based on the empirical findings of previous studies, it is expected that the claims about narratives being more effective than non-narrative texts are not true for effects on knowledge. Instead non-narrative texts are expected to have a stronger impact on this outcome variable. For attitude towards alcohol and intention to drink alcohol the claims are expected to be true, because participants are expected to be less aware of the persuasive intent of the narrative texts, which would make them less resistant. As a result, narrative texts are expected to have a stronger effect on attitude and intention.MethodsThis study compares the effects on knowledge, attitude towards alcohol, and intention to drink alcohol of both information formats in a two-condition (non-narrative vs. narrative information) experiment with repeated measures (pre-measurement, immediate post-measurement, and delayed post-measurement). The experiment was conducted amongst 296 students of the two lowest levels of the Dutch secondary education system.ResultsThe results showed immediate effects on knowledge and attitude towards alcohol, which did not differ between conditions and school levels. These effects did not persist over time. There were no effects on intention to drink alcohol.ConclusionIt is concluded non-narrative and narrative information are equally effective in the context of school health education, suggesting the claims that scholars have made about the superior effects of narrative texts are not true. Given the fact that narrative texts are more expensive to develop, policy makers may not be advised to prefer these types of texts over the traditionally used non-narrative texts.

Children’s literature to promote students’ global development and wellbeing

“…17 Actually, children literature and storytelling have been proved to be effective in specifically conveying health knowledge: the persuasive effects of narrative engagement have been illustrated in many researches and reviews. [87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95] De Graaf et al have specifically performed a systematic review of 153 experimental studies on health-related narrative persuasion with a focus on the narrative characteristics as potential explanatory factors in the effectiveness to convey a health message. 87,88 The results showed that stories that presented a healthy behaviour were more often associated with effects on the intention to adopt it, and stories with high emotional content were usually more effective, as well as the use of a first or second-person perspective in the text.…”

“…89 Zebregs et al included 15 studies that recorded positive persuasive effects of narrative. 91 Braddock and Dillard metanalyzed 74 studies that compared narrative-based interventions to a control group that did not receive any relevant message. 92 Their results showed that, compared to a baseline zero-effect, narrative had positive effects on story-consistent beliefs, attitudes and intentions.…”

Teaching medical professionalism: a qualitative exploration of persuasive communication as an educational strategy

“…statistics) tends to engage cognitive processing and is reported to influence attitudes, whilst qualitative evidence (e.g. narrative), is processed affectively and has a stronger impact on behavioural intention [29,30]. Secondly, emotional appeals provoke affective responses, the use of fear or guilt to cause attitude change have been the most researched [12].…”

El publicista social en la convergencia del Buen Vivir y los ODS

“…Son varios los científicos y expertos que realizan investigaciones de alcance experimental para medir la eficacia de la persuasión en mensajes narrativos utilizados en series de televisión, películas, textos, entre otros soportes (Hoeken & Sinkeldam, 2014;Hoeken, Kolthoff, & Sanders, 2016;Igartua & Vega, 2015;Zebregs, van den Putte, de Graaf, Lammers, & Neijens, 2015).…”