Impact of an educational presentation on attitudes toward HIV/AIDS of college freshmen (Immune deficiency)

College students' attitudes toward HIV/AIDS were initially measured in the late 1980's and early 1990's, collecting baseline data to design AIDS education and prevention programs. Because behavior modification is essential to HIV/AIDS prevention, measuring college students' attitudes toward AIDS is critical to developing preventative programs. Most human behavior is influenced by attitudes, and attitude articulation is often a function of information or knowledge base. At the start of the 21st century, little has been done to examine the knowledge and attitudes of today's college freshmen to determine if they mirror those of college students first surveyed two decades ago. This study seeks to augment earlier research suggesting college students' attitudes toward HIV/AIDS can be altered by a focal educational presentation. In a simple quasi-experiment, I compared pretest and posttest attitudes of college freshmen following such a presentation. Results were favorable, suggesting attitude and knowledge changes are modifiable in the short-term.