The Impact of Science Education Games on Prescription Drug Abuse Attitudes among Teens: A Case Study

Abstract

Two online science education games, in which players learn about the risks of prescription drug abuse in the context of investigating crimes, were evaluated to determine shifts of prescription drug abuse attitudes attributable to game exposure. High school students from grades 11 and 12 (n = 179) were assigned to one of the games and participated in a pretest, two game-play sessions, and a delayed posttest. Students in both groups demonstrated more negative attitudes toward prescription drug abuse after playing the game, driven by changes of students' normative beliefs and their ability to make the connection between prescription drug abuse and illicit drugs. A secondary aim was to assess gains in science knowledge; however, due to low internal consistency reliabilities of content measures, students' knowledge acquisition could not be determined.

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