Crystal Smit

Social Network Intervention vs. Mass Media Intervention 4 89 Additionally, the next step for future research is also to examine whether and how social network interventions change the perceived social norms of children, which in turn may cause the intervention effect. Previous research showed that changes in students’ perceptions of descriptive drinking norms mediated the effect of brief motivational interventions targeting alcohol consumption (Carey, Henson, Carey, & Maisto, 2010). Limitations and Future Research This study had a number of strengths, including a relatively large sample, multiple time points and a theoretically well-founded intervention. However, some limitations need to be addressed in interpreting the findings. First, the assessment of children’s drinking behaviors was based on self-report. Although self-reported intake is usually considered reliable (Vereecken & Maes, 2003), one should keep in mind that there is potential for under-reporting or over-reporting of these behaviors. Future studies could try to replicate our findings using additional and more direct measurements of beverage consumption, such as observations at school or flow meters attached to the schools’ water fountains (Muckelbauer et al., 2009). Second, we only measured the effect immediately after the intervention and four weeks later. Although our results indicated some improvements in children’s drinking behaviors at least four weeks after the intervention, the next step is to replicate this study and include a follow-up assessment one year later to examine the effect on the longer term (Campbell et al., 2008). Third, the current study solely focused upon stimulating peer influence and did not consider other important social influences. Despite the fact that peers are increasingly important during childhood (Salvy et al., 2012), parents continue to exert influence (Pearson et al., 2009). Recent research has shown that parental norms also play an important role in changing children’s healthy drinking behaviors (Smit et al., 2018). Hence, a conceivable approach to improve the social network intervention could be to not merely incorporate peer influence but additionally motivate parents to set a good example at home for their children with regard to water drinking (Story et al., 2008).