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

Aims. Earlier research has suggested that measuring children's positive alc ohol-related expectancies could have the undesirable side effect of increas ing them. This has been reported for an instrument that only measured posit ive expectancies and used a puppet-reference. The present study investigate d whether this increase was still found using an unbiased instrument. Furth er, it was tested whether the assessment method with puppets influenced chi ldren'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 mo nth Inter, children were again administered one of the two assessment condi tions, resulting in four assessment orders (PP, PQ, QP, QQ). setting and pa rticipants. Three hundred and ninety-five second- to fifth-graders were adm inistered one of the two methods in their schools and 260 children were mea sured a second time, I month later Measurements. A questionnaire measuring children's positive and negative expectancies was developed that could be a dministered with or without a puppet-reference. Findings. A large direct re sponse-effect was found: in the puppet condition, children scored higher an positive bur not on negative expectancies. A smaller indirect measurement- effect was found at borderline significance: children who had used the pupp et method 1 month earlier had significantly stronger positive expectancies than children who had used the questionnaire earlier. Conclusions. The pres ent 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 questi onnaire without a puppet-reference.