Evaluation of a Teen Dating Violence Social Marketing Campaign: Lessons Learned When the Null Hypothesis was Accepted

• NCJ Number: 215609
• Journal: New Directions for Evaluation Issue: 110 Dated: Summer 2006 Pages: 33-44
• Author(s): Emily F. Rothman; Michele R. Decker; Jay G. Silverman
• Date Published: 2006
• Length: 12 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article reports on lessons learned from an evaluation of a 3-month statewide (Massachusetts) mass media campaign to prevent teen dating violence, "See It and Stop It."

Abstract

The evaluation found that changes in knowledge, attitudes, behavioral intentions, or behavior regarding teen dating violence did not differ for targeted students in Massachusetts compared with control students in Connecticut. Although there was no evidence that the campaign was successful, this chapter highlights some of the data that may have influenced evaluation findings. The discussion focuses on the influence of competing campaigns and educational programs, the timing of posttest assessment, the use of self-reported identifiers to track individuals across surveys, and evaluators' inability to collect data from youth regarding their personal victimization from dating violence. Based on a consideration of these issues, the authors advised that more information might have been obtained on the compared State, and making sure that there were no competing campaigns that might influence violence in teen dating during the period of data collection. They also suggest that the evaluation could have included more specific questions that would clarify whether respondents recalled exposure to campaign messages that were being evaluated rather than other dating-violence campaigns that might have occurred during the same time period. Evaluators might have also sought supplemental funding for an additional followup assessment 6 months after the campaign's launch, so as to provide a measure of the lasting effects of the campaign. Further, a better system might have been designed for collecting self-reported identification codes from respondents, such as the collection of data by computer so as to improve the chances of matching respondents across pretest and posttest. Finally, evaluators could have explored alternative options for collecting data on dating-violence victimization. 16 references