Date Approved


Embargo Period


Document Type


Degree Name

M.A. in School Psychology


Educational Services and Leadership


College of Education

First Advisor

Klanderman, John


Drug abuse--Study and teaching (Elementary); Self-esteem in children; Sixth grade (Education)


Educational Psychology


Longitudinal studies have indicated that drug use prevention curricula are effective in increasing students' knowledge of the harmful effects of drugs, improving their social skills, and developing healthier interpersonal relationships. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to evaluate the effect of a drug use prevention curriculum on students' self-esteem over a short time span. Sixty-seven students were pretested with a measure of self-esteem after being divided into a target and a control group. Five lessons were taught to the target group over a period of five weeks. All students were then posttested and the results were analyzed using a repeated measures t statistic. The findings indicated that the drug use prevention curriculum had a significant and positive effect on the target group's measure of self-esteem. The control group showed no significant change from pretest to posttest on their measure of self-esteem. These findings indicate that a consistent use of a drug use prevention curriculum can provide short term benefits as well as long term benefits for students and their school systems.