584069
research-article2015
VAWXXX10.1177/1077801215584069Violence Against WomenJozkowski
Article
Beyond the Dyad: An Assessment of Sexual Assault Prevention Education Focused on Social Determinants of Sexual Assault Among College Students
Violence Against Women 2015, Vol. 21(7) 848–874 © The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1077801215584069 vaw.sagepub.com
Kristen N. Jozkowski1,2
Abstract Sexual assault is prevalent in the United States, particularly among college women. Prevention programs are implemented to combat assault, yet rates have not changed for five decades. A course designed to deconstruct contextualized factors contributing to assault was developed as an alternative prevention initiative. The current study assessed the effectiveness of the course compared with a traditional program via indepth interviews with students. Findings indicated that students in the course were more likely to acknowledge underlying determinants of sexual assault and articulate how such behaviors could lead to assault. The course could be an effective approach to sexual assault prevention education. Keywords college students, rape, sexual assault, sexual assault prevention education
Introduction Sexual assault (i.e., non-consensual sexual activity obtained through force, threats, verbal coercion, or intoxication) continues to be a pervasive problem in the United
1University 2Indiana
of Arkansas, Fayetteville, USA University, Bloomington, USA
Corresponding Author: Kristen N. Jozkowski, Department of Health, Human Performance and Recreation, College of Education and Health Professions, University of Arkansas, 308-V HPER Building, 1 University of Arkansas, Fayetteville AR 72701, USA. Email: [email protected]
Jozkowski
849
States, particularly among college women. Approximately 15% to 25% of women in the United States have experienced a sexual assault or rape during their lifetime (Fisher, Cullen, & Turner, 2000; Tjaden & Thoennes, 2006) with college women at an increased risk for sexual assault compared with the general population (Daigle, Fisher, & Cullen, 2008; Fisher et al., 2000). The wide range of sexual assault rates cited are due, in large part, to different methodologies utilized during data collection (e.g., asking questions using the term “rape”/”sexual assault” vs. “forced/unwanted sex”) and/ or varying definitions of rape/sexual assault used during data collection, rather than to imprecision in data collection. Unfortunately, rates of sexual assault have not declined over the last 50 years (Adams-Curtis & Forbes, 2004; Marine, 2004; Sampson, 2002), despite decades of prevention initiatives (Carmody, 2005). Sexual assault prevention education initiatives are ubiquitous across institutions of higher education in the United States to combat rates of sexual assault. Colleges and universities implement sexual assault prevention programming in part because national mandates require them to do so to receive federal funds (National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, 1994). However, there is a lack of comprehensive data assessing the content, implementation, and effectiveness of such programs (Cass, 2007). As such, it is difficult to monitor or regulate universities’ implementation of programming. Sexual assault prevention education programming is defined as “any intervention that was hypothesized by the investigator to affect sexual assault-related attitudes, cognitions, emotions or behaviors” (Breitenbecher, 2000, p. 24). Traditional sexual assault prevention programs often consist of special workshops or seminars that specifically target issues related to sexual assault prevention. Such issues often include providing information about sexual assault prevalence among college students, debunking rape myths, addressing conventional gendered assigned sex roles, identifying risk-reduction behaviors, and training in how to be empathtic toward rape survivors (Breitenbecher, 2000; Schewe, 2006). Typical programs often run between 45 min to 2 hr in length (Schewe, 2006). However, researchers have stated that there is a need to increase the duration of interventions because current time frames are insufficient for challenging rape-supportive ideology (Barth, Derezotes, & Danforth, 1991; Lonsway, 1996; Schaeffer & Nelson, 1993). Other types of initiatives, often deemed non-traditional, include taking a credited university course such as human sexuality (Dallager & Rosen, 1993), a course on women and violence (Currier & Carlson, 2009), a training course taken by students as preparation to become a peer facilitator for a sexual assault prevention education program (Lonsway et al., 1998), or exposure to pornography with subsequent debriefing (Breitenbecher, 2000). Like traditional programs, these initiatives are also aimed at altering sexual assault-related attitudes, cognitions, emotions, and/or behaviors. Campus administrators and college health professionals often acknowledge the need for prevention programming; however, researchers and college health professionals continue to question whether such programming is effective. The answer to this question is dependent on how effectiveness is conceptualized. Most evaluations determine effectiveness by examining a range of variables including attitudes, behavioral intentions, self-report behaviors, sexual victimization, directly observed
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Violence Against Women 21(7)
behaviors, and sexual aggression (Breitenbecher, 2000). Program success has often been assessed via positive shifts in participants’ level of rape myth acceptance (Burt, 1980), attitudes toward rape (Field, 1978), and adversarial sexual beliefs (Burt, 1980). Sexual assault prevention education initiatives are generally somewhat effective in modifying some attitudes and behavioral intentions. Yet, much of the peer-reviewed literature suggests that programs are effective in altering one or a few select-dependent variables, but not the others. In addition, the positive attitudinal/behavioral intention shifts that do occur tend not to last over time (Breitenbecher, 2000). Lonsway and colleagues (1998) stated that it is difficult for educators to shift the attitudes of students in the long term via a brief (45 min to 2 hr) intervention. They maintain that a longer duration of time spent with students is essential for effective sexual assault prevention education. In fact, students who took a semester-long course aimed at training peer facilitators to lead campus acquaintance rape prevention education programs demonstrated less endorsement of rape myth acceptance and adversarial heterosexual beliefs compared with students enrolled in a human sexuality course as a control. Students also scored more positively on the Attitudes Toward Feminism Scale (indicating more favorable views of feminism) compared with those in the control group. These changes occurred at the immediate post-test. At the 2-year follow-up, students who were enrolled in the peer facilitator course demonstrated less endorsement of rape myths compared with those enrolled in the human sexuality course, but scores on the other two scales were not significantly different between the two groups (Lonsway et al., 1998). Such findings demonstrate that a longer duration of time in which students spend conceptually thinking about the determinants of sexual violence may be helpful in changing attitudes that contribute to sexual violence. However, an important limitation to note is that students who enrolled in the peer facilitator course did so with the intention of volunteering as a peer sexual assault education facilitator. As such, these students may be more prone to endorse such beliefs because they had voluntarily opted to work with a sexual assault prevention education group compared with the average student.
The Current Study In response to Lonsway and colleagues’ (1998) recommendations, a course specifically created to examine the social and behavioral determinants of sexual assault exclusively in the college environment was designed for students to take as an elective course; that is, students were not required to enroll in this course as a training for a sexual assault prevention education group and the course title did not include the words “sexual assault,” “rape,” or sexual violence.” The semester-long course was designed to deconstruct the larger contextual factors that contribute to the occurrence and institutional acceptance of sexual violence in the college culture. More specifically, the course covered material (via readings and discussion of peer-reviewed literature, viewing and discussing documentary films, discussing students’ personal observations and experiences in the college culture) and required students to complete assignments (e.g., reflection papers, group presentations, critical assessments of the media) in which they reflected on such material and how it could be linked with and
Jozkowski
851
contribute to sexual violence in the college environment. For the most part, the course was entirely discussion-based and explored the interrelationship of gender, sexuality, and the college culture, including societal and media messages, gender roles, and gender-assigned sexual behavior. There was also an emphasis on how these factors contribute to sexual violence among college students. The course was designed as an alternative to the traditional sexual assault prevention education workshop available at the university, which was often conducted during a single class session as part of other courses. Both the course and the workshop focused on real-life applications of consent and sexual assault. That is, both emphasized the definition of consent. Both the course and the workshop utilized the following definition of consent: “an unmistakable, often verbal, positive agreement to engage in sexual activity that is freely given and uncoerced.” Both also emphasized that if a person says no to sexual activity and that activity occurs anyway, it is considered rape or sexual assault. Furthermore, both the course and the workshop focused on applying the definitions of consent and sexual assault during a skit-based presentation. However, the course extended beyond consent in the context of a sexual dyad (i.e., getting/giving consent to sex just prior to the sexual activity potentially occurring) to also highlight contextualized factors that contribute to misunderstandings in consent and social coercion resulting in sexual assault. The focus on the contextualized environment was designed to help students better understand how sexual assault occurs in the college environment. More specifically, the course highlighted factors within the college environment (e.g., gender roles in sexual behavior, media influence on beliefs about sexuality, hooking up/sexual relationships and encounters in the college culture, gender differences in applications of sexuality education, institutional acceptance of gender inequity in the college environment), demonstrating how such factors contribute to misunderstandings in consent communication, support for social coercion, the occurrence of sexual assault, and engagement in victim blaming. The present study was thus designed to provide a preliminary examination of the influence such a course might have on students enrolled, compared with students who had been exposed to the campus’ current efforts at sexual assault prevention education which, at the time of the study, included a 60-min presentation. In addition to emphasizing the definition and application of consent, the workshop covered definitions and statistics related to sexual assault among college students and how to respond to a sexual assault victim. This information was also covered in the course. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the alternative approach (i.e., the contextualized course on sexual violence in the college environment) compared with the 60-min sexual assault prevention education workshop. Specifically, the current study aimed to compare students in the course with students who had taken the workshop on the following criteria: 1. Students’ ability to: a. Recognize the occurrence of sexual assault in a fictitious scenario; b. Recognize proximal factors that contribute to sexual assault in a fictitious scenario; and
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c. Recognize distal determinants of sexual assault in a fictitious scenario. 2. Students’ engagement in victim blaming and rape myth endorsement regarding the characters in a fictitious scenario.
Method Overview The current study constitutes a preliminary assessment of an alternative approach to implementing sexual assault prevention education via comparing a semester-long course to an hour-long workshop. One-on-one qualitative interviews were conducted with students who were enrolled in either the semester-long course or were exposed to the hourlong workshop. Carspecken’s (1996) Critical Qualitative Methodology derived from Habermas’ (1984) Communicative Action Theory, in combination with Hesse-Biber and Leavy’s (2007) feminist qualitative interview and analysis methodology, were utilized to direct the interview protocol (a dialogic protocol) as well as data analysis (inductive content analysis). Carspecken’s (1996) methodological approach is grounded in feminist ideology: participant autonomy is maintained (the investigator viewed the research process as a participatory effort, rather than the researcher conducting a study on a subject), and an egalitarian relationship between the participant and researcher was sought. Furthermore, feminist principles are helpful when addressing sensitive topics such as sexual communication and consent because autonomy and an egalitarian researcher– participant relationship aim to put the participant at ease, thus decreasing the likelihood of response bias and increasing the validity of the participants’ responses.
Participants and Study Procedure Students who were enrolled in the semester-long course were invited to participate in the study 4 months after the course was completed. The duration between class completion and study recruitment was instituted for two reasons. First, the duration would help ensure that students would not feel as though their grade in the course was dependent on their participation in the study and thus feel pressured to participate. Second, this period of time was utilized because previous research demonstrated attitudinal rebounding after a few weeks to a month (Heppner, Humphrey, Hillenbrand-Gunn, & DeBord, 1995). Therefore, a lapse of several months may account for potential rebounding of attitudes among students in the course. At the conclusion of the hour-long workshop, enrolled students were asked to provide an email address if they were interested in participating in the study. Students who submitted email addresses were then contacted via email within 2 weeks about study participation. The study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Indiana University. Data were collected from 20 students: n = 10 enrolled in the semester course and n = 10 who had been exposed to the sexual assault prevention workshop. Participation was voluntary; however, students received a $20 gift card as a participation incentive.
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Lonsway and colleagues (1998) indicated that it is through understanding the social and contextualized determinants of sexual violence that students begin to shift their attitudes toward rape, women, and relationships (indicating less endorsement of rape myths, gender inequity, and adversarial views of women in heterosexual relationships). As such, this study aimed to assess students’ ability to deconstruct the determinants of sexual violence by presenting them with a fictitious scenario and asking them to identify key determinants that lead to sexual violence in the college environment. Students listened to an audio recording (and were provided a text script to follow along) of five fictitious scenes making up a continuous scenario that follows two college students, Vicki and Pete, during a party at which the two engage in a social interaction in which a sexual assault occurs. The scenario also included discussions with two of Vicki’s female friends and two of Pete’s male friends. Audio recordings of the five scenes were utilized as opposed to just having the participants read the text so that the tone of each character was consistent across participants and was not left up to the participants’ interpretation. During the audio recording of the scenes, the narrator described the actions of the characters and the research participant was privy to Vicki and Pete’s internal thought processes. Each of the six characters’ dialogue and internal thoughts were read by a different person on the audio recording so that research participants would be able to distinguish between the characters in the scenes. To summarize: •• Scene 1: Vicki and Pete meet. Vicki approaches Pete to talk with him. Pete interprets her approach as interest in sex; he suggests they leave to go to a private room. Vicki interprets Pete’s general friendliness as interest in getting to know her better. •• Scene 2: Once in the room, Pete kisses Vicki and the couple begins to make out and engage in intimate touching. Although Vicki enjoys it, she does not want the sexual activity to progress too far because she does not want Pete to think she is “too easy.” Pete interprets her non-verbal cues as a communication to try something different. He unzips his pants and places her hand inside his pants. Vicki is uncomfortable with this, but rationalizes that if she stimulates Pete to orgasm with her hand, she will not feel pressured to have sexual intercourse with him. Vicki is concerned that Pete will think she is “a tease” or that she does not like him if she stops or refuses to have sexual intercourse with him. •• Scene 3: Pete interprets Vicki’s actions as preparation to have sexual intercourse so he pulls her pants down. Vicki realizes the sexual activity has extended beyond her comfort zone and pulls away to resist; Pete interprets this reaction as her continued preparation for intercourse. Vicki tells Pete “no” and to “stop” multiple times. Pete interprets her refusals as Vicki not wanting to appear “slutty.” He continues progressing in sexual activity and forces sex on Vicki. •• Scene 4: Vicki recounts the situation with Pete to her friends, Paula and Jen. Paula is supportive and encourages Vicki to report the incident. Paula says that if Vicki said no, then what happened to her is rape. Jen blames Vicki by saying that reporting could ruin Pete’s life as well as the girls’ social life. She states
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that Vicki thought Pete was cute and approached him at the party, so she is to blame. Paula and Jen decide to consult with Pete’s friends, Rick and Jason, to get their opinions; Rick is Jen’s boyfriend. •• Scene 5: Jen and Paula recount the story to Rick and Jason. Rick and Jason say that Pete is a nice guy and that Vicki is a slut, was drunk, and obviously wanted the sex, but now regrets it. They maintain that Vicki is now claiming rape to avoid appearing like a slut. They tell Jen and Paula that if Vicki is going to claim rape and be “sloppy,” none of the girls are welcome to party at the guys’ house any longer. Paula and Jen return to Vicki and encourage her to ignore the situation. Paula shifts to blaming Vicki with Jen as to not upset the guys. All of the scenes were specifically written to include examples of determinants of sexual assault. The scenes were written by the author and a research team made up of sexual assault educators and a sex therapist who has worked extensively with sexual assault victims and perpetrators. The intended, identified examples included in each scene are listed in Table 2 and correspond to the scene in which they appeared. The author and the research team chose the specific concepts to embed in the scenes because they collaboratively determined that these concepts are highly linked to the occurrence of sexual assault among college students and constitute relevant and specific determinants of sexual assault in the college environment. These conclusions were based on the author’s and the team’s knowledge of the field, the peer-reviewed literature, and their anecdotal experiences working in sexual assault prevention. For instance, research suggests that endorsement of victim blaming, rape myth acceptance, and traditional views of women have been linked to greater endorsement of sexual violence and violence against women (Burt, 1980; Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1994; Lott, Reilly, & Howard, 1982; Lottes, 1992). As such, many of the embedded concepts (i.e., rape myths, victim blaming, acknowledgment of sexual assault/rape, traditional sexual script, scripted gender roles, gender-assigned sexual behavior) are linked to these larger constructs. After each scene was completed, participants were asked to reflect on the scene and were specifically asked two questions that sparked a dialogic discussion between researcher and interviewee: (a) Can you tell me what is going on in the scene? and (b) What do you think each of the characters is thinking? Participants also provided an overall reflection at the conclusion of the five scenes. Participants’ responses were assessed to determine the extent to which they were able to identify the embedded examples either by name (e.g., victim blaming) or via description (e.g., Jen is blaming Vicki for causing her own assault because she flirted with Pete). In addition, participants’ responses were assessed to examine the underlying belief structure of the participants (e.g., whether or not participants engaged in victim blaming).
Analyses All interview data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using critical qualitative analytical techniques such as meaning field analysis (i.e., assessing all potential meanings of statements) and reconstructive validity horizon analysis (i.e., clarifying the
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impressions of meaning from participants’ statements for the researcher to determine what she may be missing, what biases might be in play, and what cultural forms are necessary to understand through future analysis; Carspecken, 1996). These analytic techniques helped inform the coding procedures. Specifically, a multi-layered coding scheme was developed to analyze data in two distinct ways. First, coding was conducted to determine whether participants referenced the embedded concepts in the scenario, and second, to assess overarching themes in participants’ overall narrative. In terms of coding procedures, data were coded in two different ways by a coding team made up of the author and two research assistants who had both been trained as peer sexual assault prevention educators. First, each interview was coded strictly based on whether or not participants acknowledged or referenced the embedded concepts. For example, during the dialogue with the interviewer after a scene concluded, if a participant referenced an embedded concept like token resistance (i.e., saying no initially, but meaning yes and intending to consent to sex; Muehlenhard & Hollabaugh, 1988; Muehlenhard & Rodgers, 1998), whether or not they used that terminology, the coding team coded the participant as acknowledging the concept. The coding team noted whether or not the participant used the term or described the concept of the term. However, for the purposes of the current study, saying the term or describing the concept both resulted in the participant being coded as having acknowledged the embedded concept. This procedure was conducted for each participant’s interview to examine all the embedded terms in each of the five scenes. Cohen’s kappa, a conservative measure (Perreault & Leigh, 1989), was calculated to assess an average score of interrater reliability. An average Cohen’s kappa coefficient of 0.94 was obtained across all scenes for each participant, and all interrater reliability scores for each scene for each participant were over 0.8, indicating acceptable agreement (Banerjee, Capozzoli, McSweeney, & Sinha, 1999). To address coding discrepancies (i.e., whether or not a participant addressed an embedded concept during the interview), the author independently re-coded participants’ scenes in which the coders disagreed. The final codes were chosen based on a majority agreement. Fisher’s exact test was also utilized to compare the frequency of participants’ acknowledgment of the embedded concepts among participants enrolled in the course with those who had taken the workshop. The interviews were then re-analyzed to assess emerging themes. First, the author reviewed a subset of the data to generate a family of codes based on emerging themes within the data. Analytic techniques, such as meaning field and reconstructive validity horizon analyses (Carspecken, 1996), were utilized to inform the code generation. The list generated by the author was then discussed with the research team described above. A final coding scheme was agreed upon by the author, the research team, and the coding team. The developed codes addressed the presumed meaning underlying the participants’ statements (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2007). In other words, codes were identified as a series of common themes through which students’ responses could be reasonably interpreted. The analysis procedures provided insights into participants’ subjective experiences, which in turn help conceptualize the world view of these college students as it relates to sexual assault.
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Table 1. Demographic Characteristics. Characteristic Gender Female Male Age 18-20 21-23 24 and up Race/ethnicity White Black or African American Latino or Hispanic Asian or Asian American Bi- or multiracial Class standing Freshmen Sophomore Junior Senior Sexual orientation Heterosexual/straight Homosexual/gay/lesbian Bisexual Relationship status Single and not dating Single and dating/hanging out with someone Married
Course % (n)
Workshop % (n)
90.0 (9) 10.0 (1)
80.0 (8) 20.0 (2)
40.0 (4) 40.0 (4) 20.0 (2)
50.0 (5) 40.0 (4) 10.0 (1)
100.0 (10) 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0)
50.0 (5) 20.0 (2) 10.0 (1) 0.0 (0) 20.0 (2)
30.0 (3) 20.0 (2) 20.0 (2) 30.0 (3)
40.0 (4) 20.0 (2) 20.0 (2) 20.0 (2)
90.0 (9) 10.0 (1) 0.0 (0)
90.0 (9) 0.0 (0) 10.0 (1)
20.0 (2) 60.0 (6) 20.0 (2)
40.0 (4) 60.0 (6) 0.0 (0)
Results Participant Characteristics Table 1 provides a summary of the main demographic characteristics for participants who were enrolled in the course as well as those who had been exposed to the workshop. The majority of participants in both groups were female, heterosexual, and between 18 and 23 years old. All of the participants in the course group identified as White, whereas there was some racial diversity in the workshop group. Participants’ class standing and relationship status ranged for both groups.
Participants’ Acknowledgment of Embedded Concepts As can be seen in Table 2, participants who had taken the course more frequently acknowledged the embedded concepts compared with those in the workshop. Utilizing Fisher’s
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Jozkowski Table 2. Acknowledgment of Embedded Concept by Students After Each Scenario. Embedded concept Scenario 1 Gender stereotypes Traditional gender roles Hook-up scene Gender differences in perceptions of friendliness Gender perceptions of communication Scenario 2 Gender assigned sexual behavior/scripts Male initiator/female gatekeeper/scripted gender roles Gender stereotypes Miscommunication and misinterpretation of nonverbal cues Traditional sexual script Sexual ambivalence Token resistance Scenario 3 Acknowledgment of sexual assault/rape Misinterpretation of non-verbal cues Non-consent Sexual scripts Scenario 4 Victim blaming Rape myths Unacknowledged rape victims Scenario 5 Victim blaming Rape myths
Course
Workshop
p value
8 10 10 9 8
5 7 10 3 4
.349 .210 1 .020 .169
10 10 10 10
2 1 7 4
research-article2015
VAWXXX10.1177/1077801215584069Violence Against WomenJozkowski
Article
Beyond the Dyad: An Assessment of Sexual Assault Prevention Education Focused on Social Determinants of Sexual Assault Among College Students
Violence Against Women 2015, Vol. 21(7) 848–874 © The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1077801215584069 vaw.sagepub.com
Kristen N. Jozkowski1,2
Abstract Sexual assault is prevalent in the United States, particularly among college women. Prevention programs are implemented to combat assault, yet rates have not changed for five decades. A course designed to deconstruct contextualized factors contributing to assault was developed as an alternative prevention initiative. The current study assessed the effectiveness of the course compared with a traditional program via indepth interviews with students. Findings indicated that students in the course were more likely to acknowledge underlying determinants of sexual assault and articulate how such behaviors could lead to assault. The course could be an effective approach to sexual assault prevention education. Keywords college students, rape, sexual assault, sexual assault prevention education
Introduction Sexual assault (i.e., non-consensual sexual activity obtained through force, threats, verbal coercion, or intoxication) continues to be a pervasive problem in the United
1University 2Indiana
of Arkansas, Fayetteville, USA University, Bloomington, USA
Corresponding Author: Kristen N. Jozkowski, Department of Health, Human Performance and Recreation, College of Education and Health Professions, University of Arkansas, 308-V HPER Building, 1 University of Arkansas, Fayetteville AR 72701, USA. Email: [email protected]
Jozkowski
849
States, particularly among college women. Approximately 15% to 25% of women in the United States have experienced a sexual assault or rape during their lifetime (Fisher, Cullen, & Turner, 2000; Tjaden & Thoennes, 2006) with college women at an increased risk for sexual assault compared with the general population (Daigle, Fisher, & Cullen, 2008; Fisher et al., 2000). The wide range of sexual assault rates cited are due, in large part, to different methodologies utilized during data collection (e.g., asking questions using the term “rape”/”sexual assault” vs. “forced/unwanted sex”) and/ or varying definitions of rape/sexual assault used during data collection, rather than to imprecision in data collection. Unfortunately, rates of sexual assault have not declined over the last 50 years (Adams-Curtis & Forbes, 2004; Marine, 2004; Sampson, 2002), despite decades of prevention initiatives (Carmody, 2005). Sexual assault prevention education initiatives are ubiquitous across institutions of higher education in the United States to combat rates of sexual assault. Colleges and universities implement sexual assault prevention programming in part because national mandates require them to do so to receive federal funds (National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, 1994). However, there is a lack of comprehensive data assessing the content, implementation, and effectiveness of such programs (Cass, 2007). As such, it is difficult to monitor or regulate universities’ implementation of programming. Sexual assault prevention education programming is defined as “any intervention that was hypothesized by the investigator to affect sexual assault-related attitudes, cognitions, emotions or behaviors” (Breitenbecher, 2000, p. 24). Traditional sexual assault prevention programs often consist of special workshops or seminars that specifically target issues related to sexual assault prevention. Such issues often include providing information about sexual assault prevalence among college students, debunking rape myths, addressing conventional gendered assigned sex roles, identifying risk-reduction behaviors, and training in how to be empathtic toward rape survivors (Breitenbecher, 2000; Schewe, 2006). Typical programs often run between 45 min to 2 hr in length (Schewe, 2006). However, researchers have stated that there is a need to increase the duration of interventions because current time frames are insufficient for challenging rape-supportive ideology (Barth, Derezotes, & Danforth, 1991; Lonsway, 1996; Schaeffer & Nelson, 1993). Other types of initiatives, often deemed non-traditional, include taking a credited university course such as human sexuality (Dallager & Rosen, 1993), a course on women and violence (Currier & Carlson, 2009), a training course taken by students as preparation to become a peer facilitator for a sexual assault prevention education program (Lonsway et al., 1998), or exposure to pornography with subsequent debriefing (Breitenbecher, 2000). Like traditional programs, these initiatives are also aimed at altering sexual assault-related attitudes, cognitions, emotions, and/or behaviors. Campus administrators and college health professionals often acknowledge the need for prevention programming; however, researchers and college health professionals continue to question whether such programming is effective. The answer to this question is dependent on how effectiveness is conceptualized. Most evaluations determine effectiveness by examining a range of variables including attitudes, behavioral intentions, self-report behaviors, sexual victimization, directly observed
850
Violence Against Women 21(7)
behaviors, and sexual aggression (Breitenbecher, 2000). Program success has often been assessed via positive shifts in participants’ level of rape myth acceptance (Burt, 1980), attitudes toward rape (Field, 1978), and adversarial sexual beliefs (Burt, 1980). Sexual assault prevention education initiatives are generally somewhat effective in modifying some attitudes and behavioral intentions. Yet, much of the peer-reviewed literature suggests that programs are effective in altering one or a few select-dependent variables, but not the others. In addition, the positive attitudinal/behavioral intention shifts that do occur tend not to last over time (Breitenbecher, 2000). Lonsway and colleagues (1998) stated that it is difficult for educators to shift the attitudes of students in the long term via a brief (45 min to 2 hr) intervention. They maintain that a longer duration of time spent with students is essential for effective sexual assault prevention education. In fact, students who took a semester-long course aimed at training peer facilitators to lead campus acquaintance rape prevention education programs demonstrated less endorsement of rape myth acceptance and adversarial heterosexual beliefs compared with students enrolled in a human sexuality course as a control. Students also scored more positively on the Attitudes Toward Feminism Scale (indicating more favorable views of feminism) compared with those in the control group. These changes occurred at the immediate post-test. At the 2-year follow-up, students who were enrolled in the peer facilitator course demonstrated less endorsement of rape myths compared with those enrolled in the human sexuality course, but scores on the other two scales were not significantly different between the two groups (Lonsway et al., 1998). Such findings demonstrate that a longer duration of time in which students spend conceptually thinking about the determinants of sexual violence may be helpful in changing attitudes that contribute to sexual violence. However, an important limitation to note is that students who enrolled in the peer facilitator course did so with the intention of volunteering as a peer sexual assault education facilitator. As such, these students may be more prone to endorse such beliefs because they had voluntarily opted to work with a sexual assault prevention education group compared with the average student.
The Current Study In response to Lonsway and colleagues’ (1998) recommendations, a course specifically created to examine the social and behavioral determinants of sexual assault exclusively in the college environment was designed for students to take as an elective course; that is, students were not required to enroll in this course as a training for a sexual assault prevention education group and the course title did not include the words “sexual assault,” “rape,” or sexual violence.” The semester-long course was designed to deconstruct the larger contextual factors that contribute to the occurrence and institutional acceptance of sexual violence in the college culture. More specifically, the course covered material (via readings and discussion of peer-reviewed literature, viewing and discussing documentary films, discussing students’ personal observations and experiences in the college culture) and required students to complete assignments (e.g., reflection papers, group presentations, critical assessments of the media) in which they reflected on such material and how it could be linked with and
Jozkowski
851
contribute to sexual violence in the college environment. For the most part, the course was entirely discussion-based and explored the interrelationship of gender, sexuality, and the college culture, including societal and media messages, gender roles, and gender-assigned sexual behavior. There was also an emphasis on how these factors contribute to sexual violence among college students. The course was designed as an alternative to the traditional sexual assault prevention education workshop available at the university, which was often conducted during a single class session as part of other courses. Both the course and the workshop focused on real-life applications of consent and sexual assault. That is, both emphasized the definition of consent. Both the course and the workshop utilized the following definition of consent: “an unmistakable, often verbal, positive agreement to engage in sexual activity that is freely given and uncoerced.” Both also emphasized that if a person says no to sexual activity and that activity occurs anyway, it is considered rape or sexual assault. Furthermore, both the course and the workshop focused on applying the definitions of consent and sexual assault during a skit-based presentation. However, the course extended beyond consent in the context of a sexual dyad (i.e., getting/giving consent to sex just prior to the sexual activity potentially occurring) to also highlight contextualized factors that contribute to misunderstandings in consent and social coercion resulting in sexual assault. The focus on the contextualized environment was designed to help students better understand how sexual assault occurs in the college environment. More specifically, the course highlighted factors within the college environment (e.g., gender roles in sexual behavior, media influence on beliefs about sexuality, hooking up/sexual relationships and encounters in the college culture, gender differences in applications of sexuality education, institutional acceptance of gender inequity in the college environment), demonstrating how such factors contribute to misunderstandings in consent communication, support for social coercion, the occurrence of sexual assault, and engagement in victim blaming. The present study was thus designed to provide a preliminary examination of the influence such a course might have on students enrolled, compared with students who had been exposed to the campus’ current efforts at sexual assault prevention education which, at the time of the study, included a 60-min presentation. In addition to emphasizing the definition and application of consent, the workshop covered definitions and statistics related to sexual assault among college students and how to respond to a sexual assault victim. This information was also covered in the course. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the alternative approach (i.e., the contextualized course on sexual violence in the college environment) compared with the 60-min sexual assault prevention education workshop. Specifically, the current study aimed to compare students in the course with students who had taken the workshop on the following criteria: 1. Students’ ability to: a. Recognize the occurrence of sexual assault in a fictitious scenario; b. Recognize proximal factors that contribute to sexual assault in a fictitious scenario; and
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c. Recognize distal determinants of sexual assault in a fictitious scenario. 2. Students’ engagement in victim blaming and rape myth endorsement regarding the characters in a fictitious scenario.
Method Overview The current study constitutes a preliminary assessment of an alternative approach to implementing sexual assault prevention education via comparing a semester-long course to an hour-long workshop. One-on-one qualitative interviews were conducted with students who were enrolled in either the semester-long course or were exposed to the hourlong workshop. Carspecken’s (1996) Critical Qualitative Methodology derived from Habermas’ (1984) Communicative Action Theory, in combination with Hesse-Biber and Leavy’s (2007) feminist qualitative interview and analysis methodology, were utilized to direct the interview protocol (a dialogic protocol) as well as data analysis (inductive content analysis). Carspecken’s (1996) methodological approach is grounded in feminist ideology: participant autonomy is maintained (the investigator viewed the research process as a participatory effort, rather than the researcher conducting a study on a subject), and an egalitarian relationship between the participant and researcher was sought. Furthermore, feminist principles are helpful when addressing sensitive topics such as sexual communication and consent because autonomy and an egalitarian researcher– participant relationship aim to put the participant at ease, thus decreasing the likelihood of response bias and increasing the validity of the participants’ responses.
Participants and Study Procedure Students who were enrolled in the semester-long course were invited to participate in the study 4 months after the course was completed. The duration between class completion and study recruitment was instituted for two reasons. First, the duration would help ensure that students would not feel as though their grade in the course was dependent on their participation in the study and thus feel pressured to participate. Second, this period of time was utilized because previous research demonstrated attitudinal rebounding after a few weeks to a month (Heppner, Humphrey, Hillenbrand-Gunn, & DeBord, 1995). Therefore, a lapse of several months may account for potential rebounding of attitudes among students in the course. At the conclusion of the hour-long workshop, enrolled students were asked to provide an email address if they were interested in participating in the study. Students who submitted email addresses were then contacted via email within 2 weeks about study participation. The study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Indiana University. Data were collected from 20 students: n = 10 enrolled in the semester course and n = 10 who had been exposed to the sexual assault prevention workshop. Participation was voluntary; however, students received a $20 gift card as a participation incentive.
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Lonsway and colleagues (1998) indicated that it is through understanding the social and contextualized determinants of sexual violence that students begin to shift their attitudes toward rape, women, and relationships (indicating less endorsement of rape myths, gender inequity, and adversarial views of women in heterosexual relationships). As such, this study aimed to assess students’ ability to deconstruct the determinants of sexual violence by presenting them with a fictitious scenario and asking them to identify key determinants that lead to sexual violence in the college environment. Students listened to an audio recording (and were provided a text script to follow along) of five fictitious scenes making up a continuous scenario that follows two college students, Vicki and Pete, during a party at which the two engage in a social interaction in which a sexual assault occurs. The scenario also included discussions with two of Vicki’s female friends and two of Pete’s male friends. Audio recordings of the five scenes were utilized as opposed to just having the participants read the text so that the tone of each character was consistent across participants and was not left up to the participants’ interpretation. During the audio recording of the scenes, the narrator described the actions of the characters and the research participant was privy to Vicki and Pete’s internal thought processes. Each of the six characters’ dialogue and internal thoughts were read by a different person on the audio recording so that research participants would be able to distinguish between the characters in the scenes. To summarize: •• Scene 1: Vicki and Pete meet. Vicki approaches Pete to talk with him. Pete interprets her approach as interest in sex; he suggests they leave to go to a private room. Vicki interprets Pete’s general friendliness as interest in getting to know her better. •• Scene 2: Once in the room, Pete kisses Vicki and the couple begins to make out and engage in intimate touching. Although Vicki enjoys it, she does not want the sexual activity to progress too far because she does not want Pete to think she is “too easy.” Pete interprets her non-verbal cues as a communication to try something different. He unzips his pants and places her hand inside his pants. Vicki is uncomfortable with this, but rationalizes that if she stimulates Pete to orgasm with her hand, she will not feel pressured to have sexual intercourse with him. Vicki is concerned that Pete will think she is “a tease” or that she does not like him if she stops or refuses to have sexual intercourse with him. •• Scene 3: Pete interprets Vicki’s actions as preparation to have sexual intercourse so he pulls her pants down. Vicki realizes the sexual activity has extended beyond her comfort zone and pulls away to resist; Pete interprets this reaction as her continued preparation for intercourse. Vicki tells Pete “no” and to “stop” multiple times. Pete interprets her refusals as Vicki not wanting to appear “slutty.” He continues progressing in sexual activity and forces sex on Vicki. •• Scene 4: Vicki recounts the situation with Pete to her friends, Paula and Jen. Paula is supportive and encourages Vicki to report the incident. Paula says that if Vicki said no, then what happened to her is rape. Jen blames Vicki by saying that reporting could ruin Pete’s life as well as the girls’ social life. She states
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that Vicki thought Pete was cute and approached him at the party, so she is to blame. Paula and Jen decide to consult with Pete’s friends, Rick and Jason, to get their opinions; Rick is Jen’s boyfriend. •• Scene 5: Jen and Paula recount the story to Rick and Jason. Rick and Jason say that Pete is a nice guy and that Vicki is a slut, was drunk, and obviously wanted the sex, but now regrets it. They maintain that Vicki is now claiming rape to avoid appearing like a slut. They tell Jen and Paula that if Vicki is going to claim rape and be “sloppy,” none of the girls are welcome to party at the guys’ house any longer. Paula and Jen return to Vicki and encourage her to ignore the situation. Paula shifts to blaming Vicki with Jen as to not upset the guys. All of the scenes were specifically written to include examples of determinants of sexual assault. The scenes were written by the author and a research team made up of sexual assault educators and a sex therapist who has worked extensively with sexual assault victims and perpetrators. The intended, identified examples included in each scene are listed in Table 2 and correspond to the scene in which they appeared. The author and the research team chose the specific concepts to embed in the scenes because they collaboratively determined that these concepts are highly linked to the occurrence of sexual assault among college students and constitute relevant and specific determinants of sexual assault in the college environment. These conclusions were based on the author’s and the team’s knowledge of the field, the peer-reviewed literature, and their anecdotal experiences working in sexual assault prevention. For instance, research suggests that endorsement of victim blaming, rape myth acceptance, and traditional views of women have been linked to greater endorsement of sexual violence and violence against women (Burt, 1980; Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1994; Lott, Reilly, & Howard, 1982; Lottes, 1992). As such, many of the embedded concepts (i.e., rape myths, victim blaming, acknowledgment of sexual assault/rape, traditional sexual script, scripted gender roles, gender-assigned sexual behavior) are linked to these larger constructs. After each scene was completed, participants were asked to reflect on the scene and were specifically asked two questions that sparked a dialogic discussion between researcher and interviewee: (a) Can you tell me what is going on in the scene? and (b) What do you think each of the characters is thinking? Participants also provided an overall reflection at the conclusion of the five scenes. Participants’ responses were assessed to determine the extent to which they were able to identify the embedded examples either by name (e.g., victim blaming) or via description (e.g., Jen is blaming Vicki for causing her own assault because she flirted with Pete). In addition, participants’ responses were assessed to examine the underlying belief structure of the participants (e.g., whether or not participants engaged in victim blaming).
Analyses All interview data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using critical qualitative analytical techniques such as meaning field analysis (i.e., assessing all potential meanings of statements) and reconstructive validity horizon analysis (i.e., clarifying the
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impressions of meaning from participants’ statements for the researcher to determine what she may be missing, what biases might be in play, and what cultural forms are necessary to understand through future analysis; Carspecken, 1996). These analytic techniques helped inform the coding procedures. Specifically, a multi-layered coding scheme was developed to analyze data in two distinct ways. First, coding was conducted to determine whether participants referenced the embedded concepts in the scenario, and second, to assess overarching themes in participants’ overall narrative. In terms of coding procedures, data were coded in two different ways by a coding team made up of the author and two research assistants who had both been trained as peer sexual assault prevention educators. First, each interview was coded strictly based on whether or not participants acknowledged or referenced the embedded concepts. For example, during the dialogue with the interviewer after a scene concluded, if a participant referenced an embedded concept like token resistance (i.e., saying no initially, but meaning yes and intending to consent to sex; Muehlenhard & Hollabaugh, 1988; Muehlenhard & Rodgers, 1998), whether or not they used that terminology, the coding team coded the participant as acknowledging the concept. The coding team noted whether or not the participant used the term or described the concept of the term. However, for the purposes of the current study, saying the term or describing the concept both resulted in the participant being coded as having acknowledged the embedded concept. This procedure was conducted for each participant’s interview to examine all the embedded terms in each of the five scenes. Cohen’s kappa, a conservative measure (Perreault & Leigh, 1989), was calculated to assess an average score of interrater reliability. An average Cohen’s kappa coefficient of 0.94 was obtained across all scenes for each participant, and all interrater reliability scores for each scene for each participant were over 0.8, indicating acceptable agreement (Banerjee, Capozzoli, McSweeney, & Sinha, 1999). To address coding discrepancies (i.e., whether or not a participant addressed an embedded concept during the interview), the author independently re-coded participants’ scenes in which the coders disagreed. The final codes were chosen based on a majority agreement. Fisher’s exact test was also utilized to compare the frequency of participants’ acknowledgment of the embedded concepts among participants enrolled in the course with those who had taken the workshop. The interviews were then re-analyzed to assess emerging themes. First, the author reviewed a subset of the data to generate a family of codes based on emerging themes within the data. Analytic techniques, such as meaning field and reconstructive validity horizon analyses (Carspecken, 1996), were utilized to inform the code generation. The list generated by the author was then discussed with the research team described above. A final coding scheme was agreed upon by the author, the research team, and the coding team. The developed codes addressed the presumed meaning underlying the participants’ statements (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2007). In other words, codes were identified as a series of common themes through which students’ responses could be reasonably interpreted. The analysis procedures provided insights into participants’ subjective experiences, which in turn help conceptualize the world view of these college students as it relates to sexual assault.
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Table 1. Demographic Characteristics. Characteristic Gender Female Male Age 18-20 21-23 24 and up Race/ethnicity White Black or African American Latino or Hispanic Asian or Asian American Bi- or multiracial Class standing Freshmen Sophomore Junior Senior Sexual orientation Heterosexual/straight Homosexual/gay/lesbian Bisexual Relationship status Single and not dating Single and dating/hanging out with someone Married
Course % (n)
Workshop % (n)
90.0 (9) 10.0 (1)
80.0 (8) 20.0 (2)
40.0 (4) 40.0 (4) 20.0 (2)
50.0 (5) 40.0 (4) 10.0 (1)
100.0 (10) 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0)
50.0 (5) 20.0 (2) 10.0 (1) 0.0 (0) 20.0 (2)
30.0 (3) 20.0 (2) 20.0 (2) 30.0 (3)
40.0 (4) 20.0 (2) 20.0 (2) 20.0 (2)
90.0 (9) 10.0 (1) 0.0 (0)
90.0 (9) 0.0 (0) 10.0 (1)
20.0 (2) 60.0 (6) 20.0 (2)
40.0 (4) 60.0 (6) 0.0 (0)
Results Participant Characteristics Table 1 provides a summary of the main demographic characteristics for participants who were enrolled in the course as well as those who had been exposed to the workshop. The majority of participants in both groups were female, heterosexual, and between 18 and 23 years old. All of the participants in the course group identified as White, whereas there was some racial diversity in the workshop group. Participants’ class standing and relationship status ranged for both groups.
Participants’ Acknowledgment of Embedded Concepts As can be seen in Table 2, participants who had taken the course more frequently acknowledged the embedded concepts compared with those in the workshop. Utilizing Fisher’s
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Jozkowski Table 2. Acknowledgment of Embedded Concept by Students After Each Scenario. Embedded concept Scenario 1 Gender stereotypes Traditional gender roles Hook-up scene Gender differences in perceptions of friendliness Gender perceptions of communication Scenario 2 Gender assigned sexual behavior/scripts Male initiator/female gatekeeper/scripted gender roles Gender stereotypes Miscommunication and misinterpretation of nonverbal cues Traditional sexual script Sexual ambivalence Token resistance Scenario 3 Acknowledgment of sexual assault/rape Misinterpretation of non-verbal cues Non-consent Sexual scripts Scenario 4 Victim blaming Rape myths Unacknowledged rape victims Scenario 5 Victim blaming Rape myths
Course
Workshop
p value
8 10 10 9 8
5 7 10 3 4
.349 .210 1 .020 .169
10 10 10 10
2 1 7 4
