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"The topic of alcohol education is not new here," explains Paul Pugh, Dean of Students at Villanova University. What is new at Villanova this year is a mandatory alcohol education class delivered via the Web. The course, AlcoholEdu, is made and marketed by Massachusetts upstart Outside The Classroom. The company received $2 million in angel funding last year to fashion a line of health-related, e-courses for adoption by residential universities.
"There are 1,500 students to one health educator on campuses. This is why there is a need for courses like AlcoholEdu," explains Angela Han, Manager of Curriculum Development at Outside the Classroom. A Web-based course can succeed where warm-body counselors cannot: it can scale to teach thousands.
When it comes to selling alcohol education on campus, Outside The Classroom maintains a strong pitching arm. "As many as 360,000 current undergraduates amounting to the entire undergraduate student body of all the Big Ten schools will die from alcohol-related causes over the course of their lifetimes," reads the company's sales literature.
Pugh was sold on AlcoholEdu as mandatory for Villanova's 1,700 freshman after completing the course himself. The Dean was impressed by the e-course, which he describes as taking a "smarter approach" than products he'd seen demonstrated previously. "Most programs use fear. Fear works for some of the people, some of the time. But it is usually very temporal. The effects of fear are not enduring. This is science and fact-based," elucidates the Dean, "It does not talk down to students. It's very easy to use. It lasts two hours, but students can stop the course, play hoops, then come back and complete the course."
Classroom's Han echoes Pugh's description. "We use a science-based approach to alcohol education, designed to help students understand their behavior. We use case studies and tests to follow-up, to help reinforce the knowledge covered." Han sees her company as unique in its approach not just to transfer facts but to help correct peer norm distortions, encouraging youth to take a healthier attitude toward alcohol. "We are unique because we are striving to change the knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of college students."
Some doubt the effectiveness of Web-based training for altering social behaviors, such as drinking. Han understands such skepticism and highlights that AlcoholEdu incorporates social norm elements in the educational process. "Our course includes and integrates peer norms as well as factual information. For example, students think that the majority of their peers think that drinking is okay even if it affects behavior and academic performance. It is not okay. They learn this in the peer norms part of the course."
Why not assign incoming freshman to face-to-face peer groups and counsel them on alcohol use the old fashioned way? "That's too difficult and we're not sure how effective that would be," comments Dean Pugh. "There is no magic solution for alcohol abuse," continues the Dean. "We've taken a toolbox approach. We have an environmental approach, Late Night Villanova, which features alcohol-free weekend events. We also have intervention with a counseling center where information is wedded to counseling." For Villanova, AlcoholEdu is another tool in the campaign for alcohol awareness.
Han says of the 200 institutions that have test-driven AlcoholEdu many have adopted it unilaterally. Villanova is unique in that it is the first institution to purchase enough "seats" to offer the course to all freshmen. Some colleges license the course for use as an adjunct with face-to-face counseling. "At one school." Comments Han, "it is used only as a disciplinary sanction. Students who violate the alcohol rule on campus must take and pass the course."
Can a Web-based course lead to lasting change in student behavior? Outside The Classroom believes so. Short-term results are evident. The course features pre and post course quizzes, allowing the company to measure knowledge change immediately following course completion. "Based on the final exam scores we see a knowledge change of 10% -- one grade level," reveals Han. Attitudes and behaviors also show a shift as measured by follow-up one month after the course is completed."
Villanova has no definite answer. Not yet. To date, about half of Villanova's freshman class has completed the course. Whether or not the course has a long-term impact can only be answered by longitudinal study. "We've seen trends," says Han. "We used AlcoholEdu in 200 schools this spring. But we had no control group. In our follow-ups we saw trends, but we are not ready yet to solidify these trends. We need more time to solidify the trends."
Dean Pugh is sold on the feasibility of health education online for today's youth. "We are a residential institution but computer training works well for freshman. They are a fairly compliant lot and very comfortable with computers. It [AlcoholEdu] is two hours long but they can control the pace and the information flow. They can stop and get up and come back later." Pugh believes that being able to control an educational event ranks high with today's freshman. "They are already using the Web to select classes and register instead of going down to the Registrar's office and shoving a piece of paper through the door," explains the Dean.
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