ERIC Number: ED222430
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1982-Jul
Pages: 210
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
An Analysis of the Effectiveness of a Lesson Series on Death and Dying in Changing Adolescents' Death Anxiety and Attitudes toward Older Adults.
Glass, J. Conrad, Jr.; Knott, Elizabeth S.
Whether a unit of study dealing with death and dying caused changes in adolescents' death anxiety and attitudes toward older adults is investigated. Randomly selected students from high schools in North Carolina participated in the study. The experimental group numbered 323; there were 152 students in the control group. The experimental group participated in a series of ten 50-minute lessons on death and dying. The study employed a pretest, posttest, and follow-up posttest design. Pretests showed that adolescents had moderately high levels of death anxiety but positive attitudes toward older adults. Significantly related to the pretest levels of death were students' sex, last personal involvement with death, and school. Age, religion, grade, race, and first involvement with death were related to pretest attitudes toward older adults. In the posttest and follow-up posttest, both groups evidenced a small decrease in death anxiety and a slight change in attitudes toward older adults in a negative direction. Since these changes were not statistically significant, it cannot be concluded that participation in the lesson series influenced these changes. (RM)
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: NRTA-AARP Andrus Foundation, Washington, DC.
Authoring Institution: North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh. Dept. of Adult and Community Coll. Education.
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A