The role of academic discipline and gender in high school teachers' AIDS-related knowledge and attitudes

High school health-education teachers' perceptions and practices related to teaching HIV prevention

BACKGROUND

HIV/AIDS is one of the leading causes of illness and death in the United States with individuals between the ages of 13 and 19 years being especially vulnerable for infection. The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes, perceptions, and instructional practices of high school health teachers toward teaching HIV prevention.

METHODS

A total of 800 surveys were sent to a national random sample of high school health teachers and 50% responded.

RESULTS

There was almost complete agreement (99%) among respondents that HIV prevention instruction is needed. The factors that emerged as significantly influencing the attitudes and perceptions of high school health teachers about teaching HIV prevention were related to teacher preparation, training, and years of experience teaching health education. A state mandate requiring HIV prevention instruction was significantly associated with higher teacher efficacy expectations and more perceived benefits, but did not have a significant influence in relation to practices in the classroom. Characteristics of high school health teachers that were significantly related to attitudes, perceptions, and instructional practices included the instructor's age, sex, and race/ethnicity.

CONCLUSIONS

High school health teachers who reported the least experience teaching health education had the least supportive attitudes, perceived the most barriers, and had the lowest efficacy and outcome expectations related to teaching about HIV prevention. Whereas these findings support the importance of teacher preparation and training, they also suggest that more recent college graduates may not be fully prepared to provide effective instruction in HIV prevention.

Knowledge of and attitudes towards HIV/AIDS among school teachers in Belize

OBJECTIVES

Although Belize currently has the highest rate of HIV infection in Central America, HIV/AIDS education is not formally included in the school curriculum. We assessed HIV/AIDS-related knowledge and attitudes of Belizean teachers.

METHODS

Ninety-one teachers completed a survey of 55 questions developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, Atlanta, Georgia, USA). Four outcomes included 'Knowledge of HIV/AIDS', 'Attitude towards people with HIV/AIDS', 'Instructional confidence', and 'Comfort with sensitive topics'. Multivariable linear regression was used to identify factors associated with the outcomes.

RESULTS

The majority of teachers scored in the average range for all four outcomes, as defined in this study. Statistically significant higher comfort and confidence levels were found for teachers with prior experience teaching responsible sexuality, those with formal training in HIV/AIDS, and for secondary school teachers. Knowledge scores did not differ significantly between any groups.

CONCLUSIONS

While in general teachers in Belize have good HIV/AIDS-related knowledge, attitude, comfort, and instructional confidence, there are several subgroups of teachers who have lower comfort and instructional confidence scores. These subgroups can be targeted for HIV/AIDS training in order to increase their effectiveness as HIV/AIDS educators.

HIV/AIDS EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA: TEACHER KNOWLEDGE ABOUT HIV/AIDS: TEACHER ATTITUDE ABOUT AND CONTROL OF HIV/AIDS EDUCATION

The aim of this study was to assess secondary school teachers' comfort in teaching adolescents about sexuality and HIV/AIDS, behavioral control and outcome beliefs about HIV/AIDS education and teacher knowledge about HIV/AIDS. The sample consisted of 54 male (35.6%) and 96 female (64.4%) secondary school teachers who were mostly life skills teachers, from 150 schools across South Africa. Findings suggest that most secondary school teachers, are knowledgeable about AIDS, feel moderately comfortable teaching students about AIDS-related topics, have the knowledge and ability to teach about HIV/AIDS, but lack some material and community support. Teacher in-service training was found to have a significant impact on perceived behavioral control of HIV/AIDS education and HIV/AIDS knowledge.