'A New You, That’s Who': an evaluation of short videos on puberty and human reproduction

Lisa B. Hurwitz*, Silvia B. Lovato, Alexis R. Lauricella, Teresa K. Woodruff, Eric Patrick, Ellen Wartella

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Learning basic information about puberty and human reproduction can alleviate concerns about the transition to adolescence and provide a foundation for later learning about more advanced reproductive health topics, such as family planning. Parents and children alike believe educational videos make these topics more engaging, and socio-cultural theory suggests such videos can effectively promote learning. To that end, we tested the efficacy of a series of reproductive health education videos called 'A New You, That’s Who', with a sample of 80 11-year-old children in a research laboratory setting. The series was designed with socio-cultural theory learning principles in mind and consisted of three 5-min animated music videos focused on puberty, reproductive anatomy, and menstruation. Children were randomly assigned to watch the 'A New You, That’s Who' videos or a control set of videos on the scientific method. Children who watched the treatment videos out-performed peers in the control group on a measure reproductive health knowledge. However, there were no differences in attitudes towards puberty between conditions. The videos provide effective ways to learn factual information about puberty and human reproduction, and may be valuable tools to supplement social-emotional lessons provided at home, at school, or in other real-world settings.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number89
JournalPalgrave Communications
Volume4
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 1 2018

Funding

This research was supported by Northwestern University Center for Reproductive Health After Disease Grant P50 HD076188 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) National Centers for Translational Research in Reproduction and Infertility (NCTRI). Thanks to Nadalyn Bangura for the role she played in facilitating data analysis, Kelly J. Sheehan and Dashia Kwok for their assistance with data collection, and Zachary Lochmueller and Francesca Pietrantonio for their administrative assistance.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Arts and Humanities
  • General Social Sciences
  • General Psychology
  • Economics, Econometrics and Finance(all)

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of ''A New You, That’s Who': an evaluation of short videos on puberty and human reproduction'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this