Abstract

Instructional Design development has not yet produced a dedicated comprehensive model concerned with instruction for specialized areas of education where attitude-based behavioral change in social settings is the primary goal. As such, health and lifestyle education is one specialized field which is generally approached by instructional designers using an eclectic selection of conventional education and communication models which may often be unsuitable for the task. The growing importance and complexity of this field has resulted in calls for better structure, organization and strategic thinking. Research suggests that an alternative intervention design paradigm is needed which will help direct needs assessment, suggest strategic design and measure effectiveness of the intervention effort. This thesis describes a theoretically based paradigm and then demonstrates its efficacy through an applied intervention study on alcohol consumption behaviour directed at college students. A large sample of students (N = 506) was surveyed using a multi-dimensional questionnaire designed to provide comparative information for diagnosis, intervention design and evaluation of intervention effort. A smaller group (N = 51) of students was evaluated before, during and after the intervention effort in order to track profile changes. Intervention comprised the classroom presentation of a commercially available educational video-taped lecture on the alcohol industry, advertising effort and health related information and a feedback session where student survey responses were presented in order to foster discussion about peer behaviour and attitudes. Nearly half of the heavy drinkers treated to the intervention effort reduced the amounts of alcohol consumed and two-thirds reduced the number of times they went to high risk social environments where alcohol consumption was likely to occur. Traditional mediated interventions have rarely demonstrated such strong impact and more often focus on more limited success measurements of design styles, knowledge learned and behaviour intention toward healthier behaviour. Overall, results support the belief that the paradigm can guide health and lifestyle education intervention campaigns concerned with alcohol, smoking and other substance abuse cessation, sexually transmitted diseases and eating disorders.