lled Touch, sponsored by Project TRUST, an acronym for Teaching Reaching Using Students and Theater.This study consisted of 1,269 children (658 in the experimental group and 611 in the control group). These children were enrolled in grades 1-6 in four public schools in a Midwestern city during the 1994-1995 academic years. There were 598 males and 671 females. The numbers of children at each level ranged from 184 - 252.Trained high school students performed the play for the elementary students. The presentation lasted approximately 30 minutes and followed by a 15 minute student question and response period. (Oldfield., Hays., and Megel, 1996, page 822) The study design was a posttest only control group to assess the effects of observing the play. Classrooms of student in grades 1-6 at the four public schools were randomly assigned to either treatment or control groups. The instruments used in this study were; the Childrens Knowledge of Abuse Questionnaire Revised (CKAQ), the Revised Childrens Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC) and Maltreatment Disclosure Report Form (MDRF).The project TRUST intervention was used during the first quarter of the school year prior to the students receiving any other school-based personal safety instruction. Parents and guardians were contacted for their permission for the research, 63 percent of students participated and classrooms at each grade level were randomly assigned to the treatment or control condition.Data was collected by assigned evaluators from the subjects in both groups on the same day. Data was collected within 2 days for the experimental group and the data was collected after the play for the control group. Data was collected with a blind assessment format. Instruments were given and testing lasted approximately 50 minutes. Abuse disclosure data was sent directly to Child Protective Services (CPS). Investigators collected the d...
