Date of Award

1982

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Program

Religious Education, PhD

First Advisor

Roy C. Naden

Second Advisor

Roger L, Rudley

Third Advisor

Robert D. Moon

Abstract

Problem. The purpose of this project was to develop an instructional product that would enrich the student's knowledge about dating and marriage, and teach specific relational skills.

Method. A systematic procedure was undertaken in the development and validation of the product. First, the content of a pre-marriage course was identified through an examination of a large sample of family-life texts, a survey of teacher criticisms and recommendations pertaining to the text Marriage (Christensen, 1980), and an analysis of a group of 317 youth using the Search Institute instrument, Youth Research Survey (Strommen, 1977; see appendix E). Second, the proposed content subjects were divided into instructional units, arranged in a logical sequence, and introduced with behavioral objectives. Third, literature and research in the various unit content areas was reviewed and a prototype of the pre-marriage curriculum drafted. This prototype curriculum was taught to thirty-two seniors in a parochial academy in Hagerstown, Maryland. Validation of the instructional units was considered successful when 80 percent of the students achieved 80 percent mastery in each objective. Twenty four percent of the objectives failed to reach this level. Fourth, each of the instructional units were expanded, weaknesses exposed during the tryout stage were corrected, and a teacher's manual was prepared. Finally, the instructional product was taught to class of seventeen twelfth-grade students at a parochial academy, Battle Creek, Michigan.

Results. The instructional product met the validation criterion-- 80 percent of the students fulfilled each objective at or above the 80 percent mastery level.

Conclusions. It was concluded that the instructional product was successful and, with some modification, ready for further use as an enrichment resource for pre-marriage courses. It was recommended that further systematic revision of the product take place based on student performance.

Subject Area

Family life education, Marriage.

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/dissertations/456/

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