St. Jude Cancer Education for Children Program: Evaluation at 4th-Grade Level

• This study will measure knowledge acquisition and retention of 4th grade students. [ Time Frame: 1 year ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
  Knowledge acquisition will be assessed by taking the differences from first post-test to pre-test scores, obtained from 10 questions on each component of the intervention. A similar analysis will be undertaken by taking the differences from the 2nd post-evaluation to the 1st post-evaluation for each participant to assess knowledge retention.
  
  

• This study will measure age and gender [ Time Frame: 1 year ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
  The study will examine the relationship between outcome measures(knowledge acquisition and knowledge retention) with covariates of interest such as self-reported age and gender.
  
  
• This study will measure the knowledge scores among schools [ Time Frame: 1 year ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
  To compare the knowledge scores among schools and identify the schools that may show better improvement than others and factors associated with improvement
  
  

The subjects in this research study will be current 4th-grade students at elementary schools in Memphis, Tennessee who choose to participate in the Program. These participants are not patients of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The Program will be implemented over a three-day period. Each student will attend two presentations and six hands-on activities led by St. Jude faculty and research staff on topics within their expertise, such as cells and cancer, and healthy living. Printed materials to be distributed as part of the St. Jude Cancer Education for Children Program have been developed by a multi-disciplinary team of St. Jude employees and local educators and reviewed by national experts for scientific accuracy and appropriate readability. Material includes three illustrated children's books, a laboratory manual, and activity sheets.

One pre- and two post-tests will be administered by designated school teachers. The tests consist of 10 multiple-choice questions per each of three modules(cells, cancer, and healthy living), validated by a group of experts for readability and content relevance. Knowledge acquisition will be assessed by taking the differences from first post-test to pre-test scores, obtained from 10 questions on each component of the intervention, and using one-sample signed rank test to evaluate the improvement in the knowledge scores. A similar analysis will be undertaken by taking the differences from the 2nd post-evaluation to the 1st post-evaluation for each participant to assess knowledge retention.