Comparative Study of the Effect of Lecturing and Poster presentation about HIV/AIDS on the Knowledge and Attitude of Students

Acquire Immune Deficiancy Syndrom (AIDS) is one of the most serious and life threatening viral infections in human beings. The prevalence of the infectious disearse among young and adult generation is high. Therefore the aim of this study was to determine and compare the effect of lecturing and poster presentation as teaching methods of HIV/AIDS education on knowledge and attitude of the students at Islamic Azad University of Arak. This study was a semi experimental design. The study sample consisted of 200 students that were selected by stratified random method and divided into two groups of lecture (N=100) and poster Presentation (N=100). Data collection instrument was a questionaire. After administration of pretest in both groups, the first group was taught by lecturing accompanied with a booklet. For the second-group some posters on the bulletin board of the college were provided and then after three weeks the subjects completed the questionnaire as post-test. The data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics (idependent and paired t-test, MC Nemar test). The results of the paired t-test indicated that, using two methods of teaching, lecturing (P<0.001) and poster presentation (P<0.001) improved the knowledge of the subjects toward HIV/AIDS at pretest compared to post-test. Comparing the two methods, results that there was a significant difference between attitude level in the two groups lecturing (P<0.0001) and poster presentation (P<0.002). The independent t-test showed a significant difference in the mean scores of knowledge (P<0.001) and attitude (P<0.001). This study indicated that health education programs can lead to increase health knowledge and improving attitude regarding AIDS among students.