Version Date: Oct 21, 2020 View help for published
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Association of American Universities
Series:
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37662.v1
Version V1
In 2018, the Association of American Universities (AAU) assembled 33 schools to participate in the spring of 2019 as a follow-up to the 2015 survey. For those who participated in the 2015 AAU survey and others who had implemented the AAU survey on their own, the 2019 survey provided a means to track trends for key types of victimization and climate outcomes.
The AAU sought to examine the prevalence of and assess the campus climate regarding sexual assault and misconduct at colleges and universities. The goal of these surveys was to gather as much information about the issue as possible to help inform member schools as they create policies and strategies to combat sexual assault and misconduct on their campuses.
The study reported on the following research questions:
A total of 181,752 students out of a total student sample size of 830,936 completed the survey. Within this sample, there were 108,221 undergraduate respondents and 73,531 graduate and professional respondents; 95,975 respondents from private institutions and 85,777 respondents from public institutions. Demographic variables include age, year in school/program, year enrolled, race, citizenship, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, and disability status.
This study includes 3 data files. The first two files are respondent-level and incident-level data, respectively. The respondent-level file (DS1) contains all the survey data; this includes the survey items, derived variables, weight variables, and ID variables. The incident-level file (DS2) contains only a subset of the survey items; these include the Detail Incident Form (DIF) items (variables that start with 'GA'), the COMPLETE indicator, derived variables related to the DIF, ID, and weight variables. A third SAS data file (DS3) is provided that has the replicate weight factors for use with survey procedures that utilize replicate weights for variance estimation.
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Access to these data is restricted. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.
In addition, until October 21, 2021, access to these data is limited to members of the Association of American Universities and Westat:
As in 2015, the 2019 survey was designed to provide separate estimates for incidents involving two types of nonconsensual sexual contact (penetration and sexual touching) and four tactics (perpetrator's use of physical force; victim's inability to consent to sexual contact or stop what was happening; coercion of the victim; or contact which continued without active, ongoing, voluntary agreement from the victim). The survey also was designed to provide estimates for incidents of sexual harassment, stalking, and intimate partner violence (IPV). This level of detail provided campus administrators with the ability to tailor policies by these very different types of sexual assault and misconduct.
The survey also asked about student perceptions and knowledge about issues related to sexual assault and other sexual misconduct. Respondents were asked questions about their knowledge of rules and regulations surrounding sexual assault and other sexual misconduct; their opinions on how problematic this is at their school; how they think school officials would react to reports of incidents; and their experiences witnessing instances of sexual assault and other sexual misconduct.
In May 2018, Association of American Universities (AAU) contracted with Westat, a research firm, to plan for and implement the 2019 survey. Westat collaborated with a team of university researchers and administrators to refine core items from the 2015 survey where necessary and identify new items that should be added to the survey. Revisions on the 2015 AAU survey were based on multiple sources of information, including: comments from schools whose students completed the 2015 survey, analysis of 2015 survey data, comments from SDT members, and comments from schools whose students would be asked to complete the 2019 survey. When making changes, some priority was given to maintaining items on student perceptions and measures of nonconsensual sexual contact. The survey design team (SDT) revised items to reflect changes in definitions since 2015, such as the definition of stalking, which was updated to reflect definitions established by the United States Department of Justice. Items from the 2015 survey were changed if they were found to need improvement, like the sequence of items on sexual harassment, which the SDT adjusted to reflect recommendations made after analyses of 2015 survey data. Finally, items were either removed or changed to reduce the burden on the respondents. For example, in 2015 students were asked to fill out as many as four detailed incident forms if they experienced multiple incidents of sexual assault or sexual misconduct. The 2019 survey changed these criteria to reduce the burden on respondents.
The survey was administered during the spring 2019 semester at 33 schools, including 32 AAU member universities. The survey was administered online. The use of merge fields (a tool by which respondents received questions customized to their campuses) throughout the instrument allowed for frequent referencing of the respondent's school within questions and framing language to personalize the experience for students. Response options for five questions included university-specific responses: school of affiliation, student organizations, living situation, services and resources, and resources related to sexual assault and sexual misconduct. Schools were also provided the option to add additional questions or modules to the survey instrument. Each web survey page of the online survey included links to general and school-specific frequently asked questions and resources. The web survey pages also included a help desk number to assist students who needed technical assistance or additional resources.
Invitations to participate in the survey were sent to students' school email addresses--21 by the school and 12 by a Westat email account--on the school's launch date. Each email included a unique link to the student's online survey and was signed by a high-ranking official at the university (e.g., president, provost, etc.). The school or Westat sent reminder emails, also signed by the official, to prompt completion of the survey before the deadline. Each school determined the number and timing of reminder messages sent to students, which ranged from three to eight emails during the survey's field period.
Probability sample within each of the 33 participating schools of enrolled undergraduate, graduate, and professional students 18 years and older.
Undergraduate, graduate, and professional students of 33 institutions of higher education.
Association of American Universities
The survey is composed of 12 sections. Each respondent was asked a core set of 54 questions in each of the following sections: background, campus climate, perceptions of risk, knowledge of resources, sexual harassment, stalking, intimate partner violence (IPV), sexual assault/other sexual misconduct, opinions of program services, sexual misconduct prevention training, perceptions of responses to reporting, and bystander behavior. Questions regarding sexual misconduct prevention training were asked of students who first enrolled at the school in 2018 or 2019.
Respondents who reported they had been in a partnered relationship since enrolling at the school were asked questions about IPV. For sexual harassment, stalking, and IPV, follow-up questions were asked for each type of sexual misconduct. These follow-up questions collected information across all reported incidents for each form of victimization. For example, if someone was a victim of IPV by two different partners, the follow-up questions asked for summary information about both partners. For sexual assault/other sexual misconduct, follow-up questions were asked about the items that covered sexual assault, coercion, and lack of voluntary agreement which included a detailed incident form.
The final response rate was 21.9%
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2020-10-21 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
The initial step was to create a base-weight for each respondent. A census (the survey was sent to all eligible students) was conducted in all schools and a base weight of one was assigned to each respondent. The base weight was adjusted to reflect non-response. This adjustment consisted of a statistical raking procedure that adjusted the base weight to the demographic data available on the frame (Deming & Stephen, 1940). This adjusts for non-response and ensures the weighted estimates align with the population totals. For all schools, the variables used in the statistical raking procedure include gender, age group, year in school, race/ethnicity, and incentive status.
Missing values in the demographic variables in the survey data were imputed using a hot-deck procedure that randomly allocated responses in the same proportion as those answered within each imputation class. On the average, 1.0 percent of survey respondents had to be imputed in this way.
HideThe public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.
One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.
This dataset is maintained and distributed by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD), the criminal justice archive within ICPSR. NACJD is primarily sponsored by three agencies within the U.S. Department of Justice: the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
