Relationships between student values, teacher values, and health attitudes among students enrolled in a college-level personal health class

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between values and health-related attitudes among students enrolled in a college-level personal health class. This study sought to identify and describe what values and/or value systems were most related to positive attitude change in college students. The effect of sex and socioeconomic status on values and attitudes was examined. The Semantic Differential Health Attitudes Inventory was developed to measure health attitudes. The teacher of the personal health classes identified 24 major concepts. A pilot study was conducted to select the appropriate bipolar adjectives for each concept. The Rokeach Value Survey was used to measure values. The experimental group consisted of 41 students enrolled in two personal health classes taught by the same teacher. The control group consisted of 31 students from four English classes. Only students between the ages of 18 and 22, and never having had a health class in college, were used. A pretest which included the Rokeach Value Survey and the Semantic Differential Health Attitudes Inventory was given at the beginning of the winter semester, 1980. The Semantic Differential Health Attitudes Inventory was given as a posttest at the end of the winter semester.

Attitude change scores were calculated for the experimental and control groups. No differences between the attitude change scores of the experimental and control group were found. A regression analysis was calculated with the attitude change scores as the dependent variable and each of the 36 values as independent variables. No relationship was identified. A Spearman correlation was calculated between the iv

teacher's values and each of the student's values in the experimental group. The obtained correlation coefficients were quite low. A second Spearman correlation was calculated correlating the original correlation coefficients with the student's attitude change scores. A low correlation was found. Attitude change scores were not different according to the sex and socioeconomic status of the students. There was a high correlation between the values of males and females.

Based upon the results of this study, there are two significant conclusions that can be postulated, neither of which is definitive. The first possibility is that there is no identifiable relationship between values and health attitudes. The second possibility is that since the teacher-student value match was low, that there was sufficient teacher-student incompatibility that no attitude change occurred. A way to resolve this issue is to identify a situation where attitude change has occurred and to determine the relationship between values, attitudes and the relationship between the teacher-student value match and the student's attitude change score.