The Baby Think it Over program was conducted in the South Bend Community School Corporation during the 1997/1998 school year. A pre and post evaluation was given to all students participating in the program. A total of 160 students completed the pre and post tests.

Both the pre and post survey consist of 15 questions, of these, nine were appropriate for analysis. Among the questions analyzed, six showed statistically significant change between the pre and post tests using a t-test*. Furthermore, when evaluating Baby Think It Over, nearly all students highly recommend that other students participate in the program.

These findings indicate that the Baby Think It Over program does have significant impact on the attitudes of teens enrolled in the program.

Both the age at which students hope to have their first children and the number of children they plan to have changed significantly:

Do you plan to have children? If yes, how many? The average total number of children students plan to have dropped from 2.11 on the pre test to 1.75 on the post test.

At what age would you like to have your first child? (Asked only of those who indicated that they wanted to become parents someday) The average pre-test score was 23.5, this rose significantly to 24.5 on the post-test. (130 respondents)

Both questions regarding the relationship between parents showed significant change:

How important do you think it is to have a spouse or partner in raising a child? (149 respondents) On the pre test, 23% considered having a partner essential; this increased to 41% on the post test.

How do you think having a baby affects a couple’s relationship? (149 respondents) 43.5% reported that having a baby would make a relationship more difficult on the pre test; this increased to 50% on the post test.

Two additional questions also passed a significance test:

How important is it to you to reach your career goals before having a child? (149 respondents) On the pre test, only 34% considered reaching career goals essential compared to 46% on the post test.

Overall, I think caring for a baby is....very easy, easy, neither easy nor difficult, difficult, very difficult. (41 respondents) 41% reported that caring for a baby was very difficult; this figure jumped to 66% on the post test.

Although the following questions did not show significant differences between pre and post tests, the results are encouraging.

How many hours a day (on average) do you think are required to care for a new baby? On the pre test, students reported the average number of hours requires per day to be 22.3. This figure did not change at all between the pre and post test.

Who would be financially responsible for the baby? (This question was not appropriate for analysis using a t-test.) About one-out-of-five (21%) reported that they would expect to share responsibility with the baby’s other parent.

How important is dating to you? On the pre test, a little over one-third (35.8%) report that dating is either not or only slightly important. This proportion decreased by less than one point (35.4%) on the post test.

How expensive do you think it would be to have and care for a baby? On both the pre and post test, the vast majority indicate that they think it would by very expensive to care for a baby (92% and 90% respectively).

Program Evaluation
Three program evaluation questions were included on the post test only. All three of these items earned high scores. On a scale of one to ten:

The rating of the workshop scored an average of 8.9.
Advise other teens to participate earned a score of 9.3
Presenters earned an average of 9.2.

*A t-test is a standard statistical test used to determine whether differences between means are significant. This test was used on the scaled items on the questionnaires although, for many questions, the proportions are discussed rather than the mean score.

Ginny Kevorkian (647-3235) 6/16/98