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Another online education success story

Students at the University of Georgia interviewed their fellow students about the university’s mandatory online alcohol education course.

The student researchers found that My Student Body, the University’s online alcohol education course that students are required to complete, is considered ineffective and may actually encourage irresponsible drinking.

“Through our focus groups, we found that students felt the My Student Body course was ineffective. People thought that it was a joke,” said team leader Mary-Kerstin Lindqvist, a senior public relations and fashion merchandising major. “Our most surprising finding was that some students turned it into a drinking game and did it with friends.”

How might it be improved?

After talking to students at the University and studying alcohol education programs at other colleges, [the] researchers thought a program based on personal testimonials would be more effective.

Their research suggests the University start a program similar to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s ACE IT, which combines a theatrical performance and discussions led by older students to educate new students about alcohol.

You mean you think actual physically present people would be better than an online experience??

Margaret Soltan, May 5, 2011 12:50PM
Posted in: technolust

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8 Responses to “Another online education success story”

  1. francofou Says:

    the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s ACE IT

    Never heard of it; I did hear of the annual Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day weekend bar crawl; only one person was killed this year. Fifty percent of Champaign’s new mayor’s election campaign was funded by the owner of a campus bar.

    (http://tinyurl.com/3g6m8y2)

    Quick! Let’s put on a theatrical performance.

  2. dmf Says:

    is this the Glee model of psycho-education? only people in res-life, last refuge (I can only hope) of the “icebreaker” could imagine that theatrical performances and older students would make a favorable impression on the youth of today..

  3. Margaret Soltan Says:

    francofou, dmf: Yeah – you’re right. Don’t want to be seen as endorsing the psychodrama approach either — though wouldn’t you agree that if real research shows it works best, one would want to hold one’s nose and accept it?

  4. akj Says:

    Get with the times! Online education helps in so many other areas, why couldn’t it teach students about drinking responsibly?

    http://www.nchip.org/alcohol/

    And what about that movement? Collaborating with 13 schools nationwide is a bigger step forward than a theatrical presentation.

  5. UD Says:

    akj: Thanks, akj, but if what you’re about is keeping with the times, I’ll head for a few centuries back.

  6. dmf Says:

    UD, sure but one won’t find real research in these matters as no one is doing any followup studies on actual (not reported) behaviors, one of the many ironies of academic psychology is that their studies show that people tend to be unreliable self-reporters and yet the vast majority of their studies depend on voluntary surveys/interviews for their data.

  7. theprofessor Says:

    Skits! That’s the ticket.

  8. ricki Says:

    On my campus, all faculty and staff had to take an online HR class to teach us how not to sexually harass people.

    We had to pass an exam. No kidding. The thing is…anyone with the IQ of a clam could figure out what answers were the “desired” answers.

    Also, relatives of mine who teach in Illinois had to take an online ethics test. (Instituted by disgraced former governor Blagojevich). Apparently the questions were such that if you were devious enough to be unethical, you’d be devious enough to pass the test.

    And they say online education is the future….

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