Rape Prevention Through Bystander Education at a Northeastern State University, 2002-2004 (ICPSR 4367)

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Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection

Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes

Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a new approach to rape prevention education. The prevention program used a community of responsibility model to teach women and men how to intervene safely and effectively in cases of sexual violence before, during, and after incidents with strangers, acquaintances, or friends. The program varied from other prevention programs in that it approached both women and men as potential bystanders or witnesses to behaviors related to sexual violence. The program incorporated predictors of successful bystander intervention that could be reinforced by education: recognizing inappropriate behavior, skill building, requesting a commitment to intervene, and role modeling.

Study Design View help for Study Design

The effectiveness of the rape prevention program was evaluated by determining if participants in either a one- or three-session version of the program (treatment condition) showed improvement across measures of attitudes, knowledge, and behavior concerning sexual violence, which the control group did not. The recruitment of study participants was accomplished with the use of flyers and face-to-face recruitment. For the first wave only, the flyers were used. Over 500 brightly colored flyers were displayed around campus and the nearby downtown area to attract prospective participants. In order to solicit a broader audience than might sign up for a study relating to sexual violence, the flyers called for undergraduate students to participate in a study about community and relationship problems, included tear-off tabs with telephone number and email address for contacting the researchers, and advertised the potential to earn money by participating in the study. The second wave recruitment effort included the flyers, but also included face-to-face recruitment at the student union building. The first wave of the study was conducted during the spring semester of 2003 and the second wave of the study was conducted the following semester, in fall 2003. Three hundred and eighty-nine undergraduates participated and were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups or a control group. All first-wave participants filled out pretest questionnaires (Part 1), post-test questionnaires (Part 2), and questionnaires two (Part 3) and twelve (Part 4) months following the first post test. Those in the experimental conditions participated in the one-session or three-session program prior to filling out the post-test questionnaire, and they participated in a booster session before filling out the questionnaire at the two-month mark. The first session of the three-session treatment program presented the context of sense of community and community responsibility. Study participants were introduced to the notion of bystander responsibility, examined issues related to community membership, were asked to draw examples from their own experience of times when they had witnessed an intervention or intervened to help someone, and gained an understanding of individual and situation factors that enhance appropriate bystander intervention. The second session of the program was designed to increase awareness of sexual violence and to give study participants an opportunity to apply bystander responsibility to sexual violence. Finally, the third session allowed study participants to develop skills as bystanders. The session was designed to increase awareness among participants of the range of potential bystander behaviors with regard to personal safety, to make resources available to aid them during intervention, and to help them to understand the decision-making process behind successful bystander invention. The one-session treatment program was designed to cover the same topics as the three-session treatment program, though with less time given to go over each new idea and fewer examples used. The booster session, given two months after the completion of the first post-test, was designed as an informal discussion of what the study participants remembered from the prevention program. Second-wave participants experienced similar treatments through the administration of the two-month follow-up questionnaire. After that they received a four-month follow-up questionnaire (Part 5) at the same time the first-wave participants did their twelve-month follow-up questionnaire. Study participants were paid for their time. Those who participated in the three-session program received $80.00, the one-session participants earned $40.00, and those in the control group were paid $25.00 for the initial phase of the research. After the post-test session, all study participants were paid $15.00 for each additional questionnaire they filled out and returned. A $75.00 lottery was held as an additional incentive for all students who participated in all possible phases of the research.

Sample View help for Sample

The sample for the study was a self-selected convenience sample of undergraduate students aged 18 to 23 who attended a northeastern state university in the spring and fall 2003 semesters and who had never received training as a sexual violence victim advocate. Students who had participated in the pilot project or formative evaluation were excluded from study participation. Participants in the study were those who responded to flyers posted to advertise the study, or who were signed up at recruitment tables in the student center.

Universe View help for Universe

Undergraduate students aged 18 to 23 at a northeastern state university during the 2003 spring semester or 2003 fall semester who had never been trained as a sexual violence victim advocate.

Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation

Data Source View help for Data Source

Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection View help for Mode of Data Collection

Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables

Part 1, Pretest Data, contains variables including the group (experimental or control), if the respondent had ever attended sexual harassment or sexual violence programs, and if any course the respondent had taken had discussed the topic of sexual assault. Part 1 also contains several demographic variables such as age, sex, ethnicity, household income at age 16, college major, year in school, if the respondent was a member of an athletic team, sorority or fraternity, or any other campus group, if the respondent had any religious affiliation and attended religious services regularly, if the respondent was currently involved in a relationship, and the gender of their partner. Respondents were also asked if they thought sexual violence was a problem on campus and if they knew someone who had been either the victim of or the perpetrator of sexual violence. Other variables include those from the following scales: Sense of Community, Social Desirability, Extroversion, Spheres of Control, Self-Efficacy, Readiness to Change, Rape Myth Acceptance, Date Rape Attitude, Bystander Attitude, Bystander Behavior, Bystander Efficacy, MVP Bystander Efficacy, and Decisional Balance, as well as variables from the Knowledge Questionnaire and responses to the vignettes. Part 2, Post-Test Data, Part 3, Two-Month Follow-up Data, Part 4, Twelve-Month Follow-up Data, and Part 5, Four-Month Follow-up Data, contain the same variables as Part 1 except for the following: all demographic variables excluding sex were dropped, respondents were not asked if sexual violence was a problem on campus or if they knew a victim of or perpetrator of sexual violence, and the questions for the Social Desirability, Extroversion and Spheres of Control scales were not included. Part 2, Post-Test Data, also includes questions from the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELMQ) scale. Part 4, Twelve-Month Follow-up Data, includes additional variables asking the respondent if they had ever experienced other situations of sexual violence.

Response Rates View help for Response Rates

For the pretest, 389 undergraduates responded. There were 160 first-wave respondents and 229 second-wave respondents who filled out questionnaires. Of these, 271 were women, and 172 were men. Of that group, 124 (64 women and 60 men) completed the three-session program, 129 (69 women and 60 men) completed the one-session program, and 110 (65 women and 45 men) composed the control group, for a total of 363 (198 women and 165 men) undergraduates who filled out post-test questionnaires immediately after the program sessions ended. A total of 301 participants attended the booster sessions for the experimental groups and follow-up sessions for the control group, which were held two months after the program sessions. For the four-month follow-up phase of the research, 160 undergraduate students were contacted. Of that group, 140 (77 women and 63 men) completed questionnaires. At that same time, 83 students (54 women and 29 men) from the first wave completed the 12-month follow-up questionnaire.

Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales

Several scales were used to create the data collection instruments. These scales include the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale - Short form (Payne, Lonsway, and Fitzgerald, 1999), the College Date Rape Attitude Survey (Lanier and Elliott, 1997), the Elaboration Likelihood Model Questionnaire (ELMQ) (Heppner et al., 1999), the Slaby Bystander Efficacy Scale (Slaby, Wilson-Brewer, and DeVos, 1994), the MVP Efficacy Scale (Ward, 2001), Social Desirability (Crowne and Marlowe, 1960), Extroversion (John and Srivastava, 1999), and the interpersonal control and socio-political control sub-scales of Perceived Control (Paulhaus, 1983). Five scales were developed for this study: the Bystander Attitudes Scale, the Bystander Efficacy Scale, the Knowledge of Sexual Violence Scale, the Decisional Balance Scale (Banyard, Plante, and Moynihan, 2002), and the Readiness to Change questionnaire, which was based on Prochaska and DiClemente's Transtheorectical Model of health behavior change. Most of these scales employed Likert-type scales.

Original Release Date View help for Original Release Date

2008-02-29

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None