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Examining the Effectiveness of a Youth Theater
Intervention to Increase Decision-making Skills
Ryan J. Watson, PhD, Daniel McDonald, PhD, Ruth Carter, & Joseph Russo
Background
Teen Interactive Theater Education (TITE) is based on
six features of Positive Youth Development settings:
• Physical and Psychological safety,
• Appropriate structure,
• Supportive relationships,
• Opportunities for belonging,
• Positive social norms, and
• Support for efficacy and mattering
Purpose of Program
Method
Results
TITE has been offered at 7 alternative high schools. It
consists of a 30 hour intervention over a semester. Pre/Post
Surveys are administered at beginning and end of semester,
with 58 items on Pre-survey and 69 on Post-survey.
Survey instrument incorporates scales measuring:
>Decision-making skills
>Risk-avoidance skills
>Knowledge of the consequences of risky behaviors
>Overall learning as a results of participating in the
program (post-survey only)
TITE is a positive youth development program that engages
young people in critical thinking about pertinent topics in today’s
society through the use of experiential activities such as writing
and performing skits about avoidance of risky behaviors.
Data from program years 2011-2013 (n=127)
Scales used for these analyses were Decision-making
(α=.65 for pre and .72 for post), and overall learning (α=
.85 for post only).
The TITE curriculum incorporates various experiential activities to
engage youth in the development and delivery of original skits
associated with risky behaviors.
Paired t-tests to determine whether responses about
decision-making significantly changed from before the
intervention to after.
The primary objective of TITE is to provide opportunities for youth
to learn and teach about behaviors associated with risk, such as
drug and alcohol use, early sexual activity, dating violence, and
smoking, through an experiential discovery process.
Logistic regression was used to compare decision-making
outcomes of youth reporting an increase in learning
(knowledge, understanding, abilities) as a result of
participating in TITE.
>We first found that the TITE intervention was successful in
changing attitudes and perceptions of personal
characteristics from pre- to post-survey.
> We also found that the TITE intervention was significantly
associated with changes in the way youth thought about
decision-making, in terms of both what is important about
decision-making to youth and personal characteristics about
their decision-making.