For my Senior Honors Capstone project, I completed an individual research study on the K-12 substance use prevention education program, D.A.R.E. After extensively reviewing existing research, I recieved IRB approval and conducted an online survey. Below is my final research report and a PDF version of the poster I presented at my school’s Research and Creativity Day.
This research was a culmination of my interests in health communication and not-for-profit communication campaigns. While D.A.R.E. is more of an educational program than a communication campaign, it shares a lot of the same characteristics, like the general goal of promoting prosocial themes and behaviors. Because of my interests in communication campaigns and understanding how messaging shapes knowledge, behavior, and assumptions, I knew that I would want to study how some sort of prosocial program affects those three variables. Further, because of my interest in health communication, I wanted to focus my capstone on a prosocial health program. Seeing as D.A.R.E. is focused on reducing drug and alcohol use among adolescents, ultimately improving health, I thought it would be an appropriate topic that combines many of my interests.
I also plan to continue this research over the coming months, as I gathered more data than I had the ability to analyze in just one semester.
