The Effects of Students' Perceptions of a Speaker's Role on Their Recall of Drug Facts and Their Opinions and Attitudes about Drugs

An experiment to determine what effect students' perceptions of (1) the social role of a video-taped speaker and (2) the speaker's personal experiences with drugs had on (a) their recall of drug information presented and (b) their opinions and attitudes about drugs. Three hundred eighth grade students were randomly assigned to 15 groups and viewed the same video-taped talk about drugs. Different introductions were used to ascribe to the video-taped speaker social roles and experiences with drugs. Analysis of variance yielded results, significant at the .05 level, for the treatment dimension, ascribed social role of the presenter, on student recall of drug information. In addition, the interaction of the ascribed social role of the speaker and his ascribed experience with drugs contributed to significant differences in student recall of drug information. Sex of the respondent was found to have a significant effect on students' scores on the Drug Opinion and Attitude Test.