Improving knowledge and perception of HIV/AIDS among English language speaking children in rural areas through educational digital storytelling

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE: Previous research efforts have shown the need for improvement of knowledge and perception of HIV/AIDS among English Language speaking children in rural areas. Hence, the study at hand was designed to investigate the effect of using educational digital storytelling intervention to satisfy this need of English Language children in rural areas in Nigeria. METHOD: The study adopted a randomized control design involving a pretest, post-test, and follow-up measures. Eight-four children (n = 84) took part in the study. The HIV Knowledge Questionnaire (HIV-KQ-18) and the Perceived Risk of HIV Scale (PRHS) were used for data collection. Data were analyzed using t test statistics. RESULT: The educational digital storytelling intervention in appreciably improved knowledge and perception of English language children in rural areas who participated in the intervention concerning HIV/AIDS compared with their peers in the no-intervention control group. The improvement in knowledge and perception gained was also maintained throughout the follow-up evaluation period. CONCLUSION: The present study showed that the use of educational digital storytelling could improve knowledge and perception of HIV/AIDS among English Language speaking children in rural areas. Educational digital storytelling intervention effectively improved knowledge and perception of HIV/AIDS among children in rural areas. In return, we recommend that rural sociologists, counselors, language and communication experts, child educators, and other professionals involved in public health especially, as it concerns children be skilled in the use and application of educational digital storytelling intervention procedures to facilitate the move towards adopting the method in their professional practices.