The following is an excerpt from a pilot evaluation of Aprendiendo a Querer (“Alive to the World”) that was published on September 18th, 2006, and was conducted by Performance Results, Inc.
The Alive to the World / AW program has been taught in schools across Latin America, and is being considered for expansion to more schools in these countries, and in new regions such as the United States and Africa. In this pilot evaluation, the population evaluated was comprised of similar proportions of both genders, predominantly from UPAEP feed schools in Puebla, Mexico, and also from students in Reina de las Americas in Lima, Peru. The overwhelming majority of students evaluated were Catholic, and predominantly reported their religious feelings as moderate. Most individuals felt they were average students, had married parents, and would someday like to marry themselves.
Students demonstrated knowledge of key course curriculum areas including sexuality, values of human and social capital, personal and social responsibility, and physical or biological material. Additionally, students demonstrated improvements in their attitudes toward core course values of abstinence, the value of unborn life, the importance of decision-making, the need to manage peer pressure, and so on. In general, students’ performance with attitude outcomes was impressive for students in the lower book levels, and decreased somewhat with each successive book level. For example, Book 11 students have the lowest percent achieved for the three core attitude outcomes, while Book 8 students have the highest percent achieved for two of the three. (Book 12 students were not considered for the same attitude outcomes).
Additionally, a majority of students found the course helpful, and effective in making them more committed to making positive life choices. On the whole, females and strongly religious students were more likely than others to report positive course feedback. Aggregate analysis of course feedback outcomes also indicates that students find the course slightly less helpful, and slightly less influential to making positive life choices, with each increasing book level. Nevertheless, these accomplishments indicate the many benefits of the AW curriculum and program.
The most influential demographic variables were gender, religious feelings, and school achievement. Students’ feelings about marriage also affected outcome achievement. Parental status and age rarely, if ever, significantly influenced students’ outcome achievement. On the whole, it is somewhat intuitive that strongly religious students, self-reported good students, and students who would like to marry someday would be more receptive to, and exhibit greater comprehension and absorption of, AW course material.
