Investigation of the Concussion Goggle™ Education Program with Secondary School Athletic Teams: A Pilot Study

Background: Researchers have investigated different types of concussion education programs within various populations with mixed results. To date, no research has been published using the Concussion Goggles™ educational program Objective: To compare secondary school student-athletes’ knowledge about concussions before and after attending a concussion education program using the Concussion Goggles™. Design: Pre- posttest. Setting: Public secondary school. Patients or Other Participants: 41 secondary school students (14 girls soccer players, 14 boys basketball players, and 13 girls basketball players) with a mean age of 15.37 ± 1.22 years. Intervention(s): Participants completed the Concussion Goggles™ concussion educational program consisting of PowerPoint slides with 3 activities and short video segments within the presentation. Participants completed a test developed by the manufacturers of the Concussion Goggles™ educational program prior to and following the intervention to measure change in concussion knowledge. Main Outcome Measure(s): A 3-way mixed factorial analysis of variance (sport x grade level x gender) for repeated measures was utilized to determine statistical significance. Results: A statistically significant difference between the overall pretest (9.37 ± 1.20) and posttest (9.63 ± 1.04) scores was not found (p = 0.28). Repeated measures analysis did not indicate significant interaction effects for test score x grade (p = 0.18), test score x sport (p = 0.63), nor test score x grade x sport (p = 0.96). Conclusion: The Concussion Goggle™ education program did not affect participant knowledge of concussions in the posttest. In its current form, the Concussion Goggle™ program may not be an effective concussion education program. Word Count: 251 Key Words: concussion knowledge, concussion education, secondary school athletes