The assessment of alcohol expectancies in school children: measurement or modification?

AIMS Earlier research has suggested that measuring children's positive alcohol-related expectancies could have the undesirable side effect of increasing them. This has been reported for an instrument that only measured positive expectancies and used a puppet-reference. The present study investigated whether this increase was still found using an unbiased instrument. Further, it was tested whether the assessment method with puppets influenced children's expectancies. DESIGN Children were assigned randomly to respond on an unbiased expectancy questionnaire in one of two assessment conditions: with reference to a puppet (P) or without reference to a puppet (Q). One month later, children were again administered one of the two assessment conditions, resulting in four assessment orders (PP, PQ, QP, QQ). SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS Three hundred and ninety-five second- to fifth-graders were administered one of the two methods in their schools and 260 children were measured a second time, 1 month later. MEASUREMENTS A questionnaire measuring children's positive and negative expectancies was developed that could be administered with or without a puppet-reference. FINDINGS A large direct response-effect was found: in the puppet condition, children scored higher on positive but not on negative expectancies. A smaller indirect measurement-effect was found at borderline significance: children who had used the puppet method 1 month earlier had significantly stronger positive expectancies than children who had used the questionnaire earlier. CONCLUSIONS The present results confirm earlier indications that measuring children's positive expectancies may have the undesirable side effect of increasing them. This can be avoided by measuring children's expectancies with an unbiased questionnaire without a puppet-reference.