Age range

Website: Not available

Mission/Goals: The objective of the PSI curriculum is to provide students with the skills to respond to peer pressure effectively and delay engagement in sexual activity.

Notes: PSI is typically a five-session curriculum, taught by two older teen students, that can be incorporated in programs and schools as an alternative to traditional sexual education classes.

Source(s): www.guidestar.org; www.promisingpractices.net/

program.asp?programid=29

Type of Evaluation: Quasi-Experimental

Objective: To assess the effectiveness of the PSI curriculum.

Impact/Outcomes: Students in the PSI group who were not sexually active at before the program were significantly less likely than the control group to engage in sexual activity by the end of 8th grade (PSI: 4% vs. control: 20%). These results held true among both boys and girls where 15% of control group girls and only 1% of PSI girls engaged in sex after 8th grade. Control group boys (29%) were significantly more likely than PSI boys (8%) to engage in sex by the end of 8th grade. These results remained statistically significant at the end of the 9th grade. For students who became sexually active, 73% of PSI students reported using condoms versus 38% of control students. The program was not considered to be effective for students who were sexually active before the program began.
The study was also evaluated after four years and found that at the end of 9th grade, PSI students were more likely to use birth control than control students and more likely to admit that they used it. At the end of 12th grade, 36% of PSI girls and 52% of control girls reported a pregnancy.