ABSTRACT
Research on knowledge organization and how this develops with education and training may provide insight into the alarmingly limited effectiveness of school HIV education curricula. The present study investigates the nature of adolescent knowledge of HIV and its relationship to reasoning. Middle and high school students were interviewed about their understanding of HIV and were also asked to critically examine problem scenarios that contained myths about HIV. The findings suggest that adolescents lack understanding of basic biological concepts around which they could build well-structured schemata of HIV. As a result, their HIV knowledge exists as a collection of disjointed facts, not conducive to effective application for reasoning. The implications for school-based HIV interventions are discussed.
