A national survey found that a majority of adults and teens agree that schools should give teens a strong message that they should abstain from sex until they are at least out of high school (National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2003), yet there is no consensus in our country as to whether programs that have a strong abstinence message are effective in delaying teen sexual involvement (Hymowitz, 2003).

The present study compares the effect of an abstinence-centered sexual health education multimedia program based on cognitive flexibility theory on the attitudes and intentions of ninth-grade students at a New Jersey high school with the effects of a multimedia program that utilizes a traditional instructive, directive approach. In addition, the study compares the effect of a presentation based on the Health Beliefs model emphasizing consequences of teen sexual behavior on teens' attitudes and intentions with the impact of a presentation based on a Character Education model that asserts norms of healthy sexual behaviors.

Both the traditional instructional design and the Cognitive Flexibility Theory (CFT)-based design for abstinence-centered teen sexuality education were significantly more effective than no sex education in impacting the sexual attitudes and intentions of this racially diverse cohort of ninth-grade students, including the several racial/ethnic groups represented in the study and both genders. The traditional instructional design was significantly more effective than the CFT design, suggesting that a directive, instructional approach in abstinence-centered sexual health education can strengthen the impact on teens' attitudes and intentions to abstain from sex. Both the threat-appeal presentation and the norms/ideals presentation were significantly effective in impacting both male and female students' sexual attitudes and intentions. The norms/ideals presentation was significantly more effective than the threat-appeal presentation in impacting many attitudinal scales and questions, suggesting that discussions of norms and ideals should not be omitted in sex education that seeks to increase teen abstinence.