PERSUASIVE GOAL

We began this project to create a website to convince Alabama teenagers to enroll

in the Relationship Smarts Plus program. Through careful research and application of

persuasive theory, we have prepared a website which will cater to the needs of the

Alabama Community Healthy Marriage Initiative while entertaining and persuading

teenagers.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The Alabama Community Healthy Marriage Initiative (ACHMI) is a program

designed to promote healthy relationships and marriage throughout Alabama. In the fall

of 2006, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Family Assistance

provided Auburn University and its partners a 5-year grant to expand the work of

ACHMI (handout). ACHMI has brought together many groups to support its cause,

including the Human Development and Family Studies Department at Auburn

University, the Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention/The Children’s Trust

Fund, and the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, as well as a network of public,

non-profit, and faith-based organizations (handout).

ACHMI strives to increase public awareness of the importance of healthy

relationships and marriages for children, family and community well-being (website).

Evidence shows that good relationships within families foster healthier, happier children,

who tend to do better academically, have a positive sense of self, have better social skills

and be physically healthier. Adults also benefit from healthy relationships, they are more

likely to contribute to their communities, are more nurturing parents, and more reliable

workers (handout).

ACHMI has created curriculum for youth, non-married parents, pre-marital

couples, stepfamilies, and married couples (website). They are continually increasing

access to these courses and other healthy relationship resources for Alabama citizens.

They offer five educational programs through their community partners, including Basic

Training for Couples: Black Marriage Education, Mastering the Magic of Love,

Relationship Smarts Plus, Smart Steps for Stepfamilies, and Together We Can: Caring

for My Family (website).

Relationship Smarts Plus (RS+) is a youth course consisting of 13 one-hour

lessons for teens in grades 7-12 (website). RS+ uses group activities, hands-on activities,

and media to engage teens in the topics of love, dating, breaking up, unhealthy

relationships, sex and communication skills. The course begins with lessons of self-

awareness and future orientation before moving into romantic relationships. Although

the course is pro-abstinence, RS+ aims to look beyond avoiding STDs and pregnancy, to

the context of sexuality in relationships, and to let teens know that sex should have

meaning. It focuses on reversing misinformation about healthy relationships, while

showing teens the economic, social and personal benefits of a healthy marriage (course

content).

The curriculum is currently being taught through public school health classes and

various community organizations, and is showing positive results in participants.

Surveys of participants show an increase in knowledge about relationship concepts,

understanding relationship abuse, recognizing unhealthy communication patterns,

employing healthy dating strategies, understanding love and intimacy and preparing for

the future (PDF).

AUDIENCE ANAYSIS

RATIONALE

To further our research, we conducted an audience analysis of Alabama teenagers

on attitudes and behaviors associated with relationships, personal issues, events and

websites. The results of the survey helped us decide what needed to be on the website

and how to make information most effective. Prior to conducting the survey, we hoped

to find information consistent with similar national surveys and ACHMI research, but

that would give us a more local, in-depth point of view.

METHOD

SUBJECTS: We tested a group of Auburn High School students in tenth through

twelfth grades. We surveyed 39 students, 20 female and 19 male. Since this is a pretty

even split, it is reasonable to assume the results would be consistent to a larger group of

students the same age. Unfortunately, the students surveyed were all from the Auburn

area and a slightly different age than our target audience of eighth through tenth graders.

However, these results still provide us with useful information.

INSTRUMENT: The survey we produced contained 10 questions, including

open-ended, yes/no, multiple choice, and ranking questions. These questions were

created from information we researched and from questions that we thought were

unanswered by the research we had.

PROCEDURE: The surveys were distributed during first and second period

physical education classes at Auburn High School on Friday, April 3, 2009. Participants

were asked to fill out the surveys completely and honestly.

RESULTS

When asked on a scale of one to ten how important building strong relationships

is, male respondents answered an average of 6.89, while females answered an average of

8.65. When asked if strong relationships in high school will help prepare them for life,

74 percent of males answered yes, while 26 percent answered no, and 95 percent of

females answered yes, while only 5 percent answered no. When asked how much parents

and teachers influence their behavior on a scale of one to five, males average response

was 3.1 and females average response was 3.6.

When asked who they felt most comfortable talking about personal issues with,

males answered friends (48 percent), family (29 percent), nobody (15 percent), and

girlfriend (8 percent). Females answered friends (62 percent), family (21 percent),

boyfriend (13 percent), and nobody (4 percent). When asked to rank the group that was

most important to them, males ranked mom and dad, friends, girlfriend, siblings then

teachers. Females ranked mom and dad, siblings, friends, boyfriend then teachers. When

asked to rank what events in high school are most important, males answered sporting

events, parties, dances and exams, while females answered sporting events, prom,

homecoming, graduation and lunch.

When asked if they would attend a class that talked about building strong

relationships, 21 percent of males said yes, while 79 percent said no, and 35 percent of

females said yes, and 79 percent said no. When asked if they would attend if their friends

when with them, 89 percent of males said yes, and 11 percent said no, while 70 percent of

females said yes, and 30 percent said no.

When asked what would attract you to a website about building strong

relationships, the most common responses were success stories from other teenagers,

ability to ask questions and get good answers, videos, graphics, tips, pictures, a good

design, real life stories and situations, and being able to interact with other people.

DISCUSSION

From these results we can gather that family and friends are the most important

and influential groups in a teenager’s life. The most important events in high school are

social events, and the people teenagers are most likely to go to with their personal issues

are their friends. Since peers are such an important part of a teenager’s life, we realized

that a large part of our website needed to focus on peer to peer relationships. It was

especially important for us to realize that teens are much more likely to attend the

Relationship Smarts class if they were with friends.

We also learned that the research we found on effective teen websites contained

many of the same tools that the participants said they would enjoy. From this

information, we know what would be most likely get teens to visit the site, and thus,

persuade the teens to sign up for the class.

PERSUASIVE STRATEGIES

CREDIBILITY

We wanted visitors to the site to trust and believe our message, so we aimed to

prove ACHMI’s credibility. We included a link to view the course teachers with their

names and professional titles, which creates extrinsic credibility, because without ever

speaking, the teachers will be credible because of their degrees and perceived knowledge

on the subject. Also, we wanted to further the website’s intrinsic credibility by providing

a live chat option. The chat feature would be an instant messaging system in which teens

would be able to speak to experts on teen relationships, which would include adults and

graduate teaching assistants working with ACHMI, as well as members of the teen

advisory board. Since the teens will be able to ask questions on any information

presented on the site or ask further questions about RS+, the presentation of the message

is more credible because it is subject to the teens’ scrutiny.

GROUP DYNAMICS

In researching effective teen website tools, we found that most teens like

interactive elements, including polls, quizzes and message boards (web article). We took

this information and developed a quiz section of the website which incorporated the

theory of group dynamics, particularly social comparison. Leon Festinger developed the

concept of social comparison to argue that “we tend to evaluate how good our own

accomplishments are by comparing ourselves to others” (book). We used a true/false

quiz from the Relationship Smarts course content to help teens determine if the course

would be useful for them. The course uses the quiz to dispel popular dating myths, but

we used it to show teens that their knowledge of healthy relationships is lacking. After

completing the quiz, teens are shown the correct answers to the questions, and told that

teens who didn’t know the correct answer for the questions benefited from the RS+

classes, and once participants completed the course, they were able to answer the

questions correctly.

Sandy Williams, the State Public Awareness Coordinator for ACHMI, stressed

the importance of addressing peer to peer relationships, so we created a message board

where teens could communicate with others and initiate their own topics for social

comparison (interview). Teens could ask each other about their relationship experiences,

and see if their own are in line with other teens. Charles Jackson, the public relations

coordinator for ACHMI, suggested that the site address the topics of upcoming prom and

graduation, which could be possible topics for the message board (interview).

Jeremy Walden, Relationship Smarts teacher, suggested that we employ use of

participant testimony and statistics on course enrollment as a mode of social proof

(interview). When teens see how others have benefited, or how many other teens have

completed the course, they will be more likely to think they need or would benefit from

the class, and thus sign up.

ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL

We employed the Elaboration Likelihood Model in several ways throughout the

site, hoping to get visitors to the website to be drawn in by peripheral cues and then

motivate them receive our message for central processing. From the suggestion of

Jackson, we included several video and sound clips on our site (interview). Jackson

provided videos and public service announcements created by the Teen Advisory Board,

which we included on the site, along with information produced by Teen Advisory Board

to explain who they are, to show teenagers that their peers are also working on this

project, which would draw them in because of source likeability (current site). We use

repetition of contact information and the pros of attending a RS+ course to help the

chances of comprehension. Also, we hope that because relationships are important to

most teens, they will realize they will be accountable for information on relationships,

and the RS+ class would be a good place to learn about them.

YALE APPROACH

We used the Yale Approach’s four components of persuasion, attention,

comprehension, acceptance, and retention, to encourage teens to enroll in the course. To

get the visitors of the website to focus on the information, we grabbed their attention with

videos, sound clips and information pertinent to teenagers’ relationships. To help with

comprehension, we encourage participation in quizzes and message boards, and stating

the positive effects of the class on its participants. Acceptance of our message would

translate into teens signing up for the class. To help facilitate acceptance, we repeated

their need for the class and participant approval, and made it easy to sign up for a class on

the website. The combination of attention grabbing elements and useful information will

help the website’s visitors retain how important the Relationship Smarts class would be

to them.

SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

In the social learning theory, we employ vicarious reinforcement and instructions,

rules or communication. The testimonies from participants serve as vicarious

reinforcement because visitors to the site will see that the knowledge gained from the

class was a positive reward of attending the class, and believe that if they sign up for a

class they will also get this positive reward. Since we cannot directly reinforce or

extinguish the act of going to the class, we communicate throughout the site that

relationships are important and by attending the Relationship Smarts classes, they will be

able to more effectively understand and work in relationships.

SOCIAL JUDGMENT THEORY

Since teenagers see relationships as important, we constructed the website to

reinforce and further that idea. According to the social judgment theory, since we

attempt to appeal to positions inside the latitude of acceptance, we are likely to persuade

the teens to sign up for the course. If teens assimilate our message and sign up for the

course, that means that they accept our message that Relationship Smarts can help them

obtain useful relationship skills.