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Sexual violence prevention on college campus as a Clery Act requirement: perceptions from the field
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Sexual violence prevention on college campus as a Clery Act requirement: perceptions from the field
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Content
SEXUAL VIOLENCE PREVENTION ON COLLEGE CAMPUS AS A CLERY
ACT REQUIREMENT: PERCEPTIONS FROM THE FIELD
by
Irina Gottlieb
____________________________________________________________
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements of the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
August 2008
Copyright 2008 Irina Gottlieb
ii
DEDICATION
To my mother and father, who never completed their doctoral program, but
nevertheless, dedicated many of their productive years to the world of science. I am
eternally grateful to them, as I know that they are extremely proud of me.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This dissertation could not have been possible without the support and
assistance of the following individuals:
My dissertation committee members, Dr. Melora Sundt, Dr. Ron Astor, and
Dr. Lynette Merriman, my wonderful and supportive editor, Dr. Sharon Bear, and
my research partners, Kevin Colaner and Juli Soden, as well as the many friends and
colleagues at the USC Rossier School of Education Research Institute, who have
rendered their moral support and, thus, helped me to bear the pressure of the doctoral
program and dissertation process. Special thanks go to Dr. Melora Sundt, my
advisor, supervisor, mentor, and friend, who has always believed in me, as well as
inspired and guided me throughout the process. Finally, my thanks go to all of my
family members who understood the importance of this accomplishment to me and
have patiently waited until this work is completed.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedication ii
Acknowledgments iii
List of Tables vi
Abstract viii
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
Background of the Problem 3
Statement of the Problem 12
Purpose of the Study 13
Research Questions 14
Importance of the Study 14
Assumptions 15
Delimitations 16
Limitations 16
Definition of Terms 17
Organization of the Study 20
Chapter 2: Literature Review 22
What is Being Studied: Definition Issues 22
Factors Salient to the Conversation of Sexual Violence 32
Institutional Response to Violence 44
Conclusions 60
Chapter 3: Methodology 63
Methods 65
Ethical Considerations 73
Summary 74
Chapter 4: Results 75
Participant Characteristics 75
Treatment of the Data 76
Participant Demographics 78
Research Questions 82
Summary 115
v
Chapter 5: Summary, Conclusions, and Implications 120
Discussion of the Findings 122
Limitations of the Study 130
Recommendations for Future Research 132
Implications for Professional Practice 135
Conclusion 141
References 146
Appendices 164
Appendix A 165
Appendix B 166
Appendix C 179
Appendix D 183
vi
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Years in Profession 78
Table 2: Administrative Level 79
Table 3: Type of Institution 80
Table 4: Job Function 81
Table 5: Perceptions of Violence as a Problem 84
Table 6: Relationship between Perceptions of an Institution’s Effectiveness
and Violence as a Problem 85
Table 7: Programs Implemented on College Campuses 87
Table 8: Relationship between Program Implementation and Perceptions of
Violence as a Problem 88
Table 9: Degree of Professionals’ Involvement with Prevention Programs 90
Table 10: Women’s Center Employees’ Involvement 92
Table 11: Relationship between Program Implementation and Participants’
Involvement 94
Table 12: Prevention Program Effectiveness 96
Table 13: Perceptions of Prevention Approach Effectiveness 97
Table 14: Perceptions of Orientation Based on Perceptions of Violence
as a Problem 100
Table 15: Perceptions Based on Years in Field 102
Table 16: Perceptions of Rallies/Speak-out Programs Based on Job Function 103
Table 17: Perceptions of Rallies/Speak-out Programs Based on Perceptions
of Violence as a Problem 104
Table 18: Perceptions of Prevention Programs on Size of Institution 105
vii
Table 19: Perceptions of Distribution of Brochures Based on Job Function 106
Table 20: Perceptions of Distribution of Promotional Materials Based on Job
Function 107
Table 21: Perceptions of Prevention Approaches on Administration 109
Table 22: Perceptions of Self-Defense Approach Based on Perceptions of
Violence 110
Table 23: Perceptions of Self-Defense Approach Based on Participants’
Job Function 111
Table 24: Perceptions of Teaching Women How to Avoid Dark and
Dangerous Places Based on Administrative Level 112
Table 25: Perceptions of Teaching Women How to Avoid Dark and
Dangerous Places Based on Perceptions of Violence 113
Table 26: Perceptions of Teaching Women How to Avoid Dark and
Dangerous Places Based on Participants’ Job Function 114
viii
ABSTRACT
In the past decade violence on college campuses and, specifically, sexual
violence have been widely recognized as a significant and persistent problem.
Multiple studies have been conducted on the prevalence, incidence, causes, and
effects of this type of violence nationwide. This problem also has been addressed
through national education policy and legislation. The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of
Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act has been a major event in
this policy and a separate target of research on its own. However, no studies up to
date have comprehensively studied what colleges do to meet the requirements of the
Clery Act and to reduce crime on their respective campuses.
This study analyzed student affairs professionals’ awareness and perceptions
of existing sexual violence prevention programs. It was sought to determine patterns
in the professionals’ perceptions based on the respondents’ gender, years in the field,
and other relevant characteristics.
The study was guided by two main research questions: (1) What sexual
violence prevention programs do student affairs professionals perceive as most
effective? and (2) Is there any pattern in student affairs professionals’ perceptions of
violence prevention programs, based on their gender, years in the field, professional
level, unit in which they work, and size, type, and geographic location of the
institution and perceptions of violence on campus as a problem? A nationwide web-
based survey was used to conduct this study.
ix
The results indicated that orientation for incoming students, self-defense
programs, rallies/speak-outs, and distribution of brochures and other promotional
materials were perceived to be most effective for sexual violence prevention on
campus. Additionally, participants with less work experience, employed in entry-
level positions at 2-year, commuter, and smaller-sized institutions demonstrated a
greater preference for more traditional risk reduction and mass-printed information
distribution programs than did their counterparts employed at larger residential and
4-year colleges, who had more professional experience and/or authority. The results
present important implications for violence-related education and the types of
colleges that need targeted funding to provide such an education, as well as for
improving institutions’ efforts in violence and crime prevention.
1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Historically, in the countries that have embraced higher education, including
the United States, college campuses were considered safe and friendly environments
promoting learning and the pursuit of truth, socialization, and healthy academic
competition (Smith, 1989). One reason that it has been a challenge for institutions to
address crime on their campuses may be that college administrators did not
anticipate crime occurring in college. In fact, many still believe that college
campuses are far safer environments than the so-called “street” or its surroundings
(Hoffman, Summers, & Schoenwald, 1998).
Despite the problems involved with reporting campus violence statistics,
there is sufficient evidence that sexual violence represents one of the biggest
challenges to campus safety today. Among all other crimes, rape and sexual assault
were found to be the only types of crime that occur at similar rates for college
students as for non-students (Hart, 2003) and, in some cases, at even higher rates
than for non-students, which is not found for other forms of violent victimization
(Fisher, Sloan, Cullen, & Lu, 1998). Research conducted on the general population
in the past two decades suggests that women are the main victims of sexual crimes
(Bachman, 1998; Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000), while violence is largely perpetrated
by men (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000). Because colleges contain large concentrations
of young women, they are believed to represent a higher risk for college women
2
(Fisher et al., 1998; Koss, Gidycz, & Wisniewski, 1987) than for women in the
general population.
After a number of grave crimes had received a significant amount of
publicity in the media, perceptions of campus safety gradually started to change.
Importantly, these events led to the introduction of the legislation currently known as
the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics
Act, which is part of the Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act (Clery Act;
Public Law 101-542), the main purpose of which is to provide crime information on
college campuses, as a means to make informed decisions while selecting a college.
Further, at about the same time, the results of a number of victimization
surveys appeared in press. One such survey, the Sexual Experiences Survey, found
that over 50% of college women had experienced some form of sexual victimization,
of which 27.5% were attempted and completed rapes (Koss et al., 1987). Roughly
calculated to match the FBI format, it was equal to a rate of approximately 38 rapes
per 1,000 women who had experienced rape over the previous six months.
Studies on the effectiveness of the Clery Act found that the legislation has
significantly improved campus crime reporting (Gregory & Janosik, 2003; Janosik &
Gregory, 2003). However, at the same time, the Act has not been found particularly
successful in reducing the crime rates or changing student behavior (Gregory &
Janosik, 2003; Janosik & Gehring, 2003). These findings imply that one of the
primary goals of the Act, encouraging campuses to take steps towards safer
environments, is only being partially achieved.
3
The current research was conducted in collaboration with two other
University of Southern California doctoral students who produced a series of three
studies on the role of student affairs professionals in fulfilling the requirements of the
Clery Act. One of the student co-investigator’s studies concerned student affairs
professionals’ awareness and knowledge of the Clery Act. A companion study
conducted by another student co-investigator focused on the differences between 2-
year college and 4-year college representatives. This research is the third study in the
series and focuses on student affairs professionals’ perceptions of sexual violence
prevention programming as one of the most important requirements of the Clery Act.
By surveying student affairs professionals in regard to the effectiveness of violence
prevention programs on campus, this study should contribute to our understanding of
the best approaches to address violence against women on college campuses.
Background of the Problem
The problem of violence and crime on American college campuses has been
well established since the early 1980s. Since then, the concern of the public, federal
government, and college community has been seen in the adoption of new federal
legislation, college practices of crime recording, reporting, and prevention, multiple
studies on violence, victimization surveys, and special statistics reports.
According to one such report, during 1992, 1993, and 1994, institutions
experienced approximately 10,000 violent crimes (U.S. Department of Education,
1997). For the period of 1995-2002, approximately 479,000 violent crimes were
committed annually against college students (Baum & Klaus, 2005). In comparison
4
with the Department of Justice data for 1995-2000, which showed 526,000 crimes
annually (Hart, 2003), there has been a decline in the average number of crimes on
college campus per year. The decrease from 1995 to 2002 has been estimated at as
much as 54% (Baum & Klaus, 2005). The crime rate among college students also
has been found to be lower than among non-students (Baum & Klaus, 2005; U.S.
Department of Education, 2001). These statistics have led to claims by the
Department of Education, as well as some researchers, that college campuses are
safe or “relatively safe” environments (Gregory & Janosik, 2003; U.S. Department
of Education, 2001).
Despite the decline in crime and the lower incidence of certain crimes on
college campuses, as compared to non-campus communities, college campuses are
far from safe. Moreover, colleges enroll a large number of students. According to the
most recent enrollment survey conducted by the Department of Education in 2005
(Knapp, Kelly-Reid, Whitmore, & Miller, 2007) there were 18,000,000 students
enrolled in fall 2005 in over 6,600 post-secondary institutions in the United States.
Campus Safety: Reasons for Concern
Research suggests that violence in American colleges is not new and that the
concept of a university or college campus as a safe “haven” is a myth (Fisher, 1995;
Fisher et al., 1998). There is evidence that crimes have occurred throughout the
history of American post-secondary education (Hoffman et al., 1998). However,
because the statistical reports became common only in the past decade, the evidence
for prior crimes is largely anecdotal and is hard to estimate. There are also reasons to
5
assume that crime on college campus has become a bigger problem now than in the
past (Bennett-Johnson, 1997; Smith, 1989).
One such reason could be the increase in the numbers of college students. If,
in the not so recent past, American colleges were largely reserved for middle and
upper class white youth, now increasing funding opportunities and the more
democratized diversity-oriented policies make American colleges accessible to other
social layers and disenfranchised minorities (Bennett-Johnson, 1997; Smith, 1989).
Among a variety of factors that might be contributing to the increasing
vulnerability of campuses to violence are openness to the public, easy access to
campus buildings, long hours, campus events, substance abuse, and prevalence of
firearms on and around campus, as well as psychological factors such as stress,
“freedom” from parental supervision, peer pressure, exposure to violence in the
media, and increased exposure to “social” life in the form of fraternities, parties, and
athletic events (Jackson, 2000; Nichols, 1995; Schuh, 1998).
One of the ironic factors of campus violence is that college campuses strive
to be open, friendly, and attractive to the public. As such, they are accepting of
anyone who wishes to visit their campus and use their facilities (Nichols, 1995;
Schuh, 1998). Another important factor is that colleges have moved from a strict and
paternalistic system of in loco parentis to a more relaxed and less controlling system
of rules and regulations and to the abolishment of the in loco parentis practices in the
1960s (Fisher 1995; Pearson, 2001; Stoner & Lowery, 2004). On the one hand, the
abolishment of in loco parentis has made it more difficult for colleges to exercise
6
control and paternalism over students’ behavior. On the other hand, the very fact of
its abolishment was the result of the social perturbations of the 1960s in the form of
urban riots, the civil rights movement, and overall “civil disobedience” (Nuss, 1996).
It is also necessary to keep in mind that masses of students come from
American secondary schools where they increasingly witness or experience violence
first-hand (Fenske & Hood, 1998). According to the National Center for Education
Statistics, 71% of public elementary and secondary schools reported at least one
incident of violence, including physical attacks with and without a weapon, threats of
physical attacks with and without a weapon, robberies, and sexual assaults, with a
total of 1,466,000 of violent incidents reported for the academic year 1999-2000
(Miller, 2003).
As compared to youth in other countries, U.S. teenagers rank relatively high
for both feeling unsafe at school and bullied by other students (U. S. Department of
Health and Human Services, 2003). Studies consistently show a strong relationship
between victimization and exposure to violence and children’s violent behaviors and
aggression (Flannery, Singer, & Wester, 2001; Moses, 1999; Schwab-Stone et al.,
1999; Vossekuil, Reddy, Fein, Borum, & Modzeleski, 2000). These tendencies
become stronger as children approach college age and acquire the desire to reach
adult status and independence (Skinner & Krohn, 1992). Therefore, the violence
emerging on American college campuses might be spreading not just from the
outside, due to the campuses’ openness and vulnerability, but also from within, often
perpetrated by college students themselves.
7
Reporting Crime Victimization
It remains difficult to estimate the true level of crime on American campuses,
as many crimes are simply underreported or recorded incorrectly (Fisher, Hartman,
Cullen, & Turner, 2002; Hoffman et al., 1998). For example, from 1995-2000,
violence against college students was 14% less likely to be reported to the police
than was violence against non-students (Hart, 2003). Aggressive recruitment policies
and the desire to be attractive to potential clients also might make colleges reluctant
to admit that their campus is not safe (Carr, 2005). This is where the notion of
“hiding” crime statistics by college administrators (Gregory & Janosik, 2002; 2003;
Janosik & Gregory, 2003; Keels, 2004; Rada, 1998; Sloan, Fisher, & Cullen, 1997;
Soden, 2006) may have originated.
The problem of underreporting campus crimes stems from the suspicion that
the crimes that never result in criminal charges never get reported even if they result
in certain college judicial or disciplinary procedures (Hoffman et al., 1998). Such
serious and violent crimes as sexual assault, including rapes, and sexual offenses,
including stalking, are believed to be seriously underreported as well (U.S.
Department of Education, 1997). For this reason, the reported increases in sex
offense rates in college can be explained by the mere fact of some slight increases in
reporting those crimes (U. S. Department of Education, 2001). It is even more
difficult to estimate the degree of underreporting sexual crimes as they are often
likely never to be reported to any college representatives or researchers and the least
likely to be reported to campus police (Bachman, 1998; Fisher, Daigle, Cullen, &
8
Turner, 2003; Rennison, 1999; Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000). The reasons for
underreporting sex offences are many, including the confusion around “date rapes”
experienced by survivors themselves (Sloan, et al., 1997) and the lack of
institutionalized response to such crimes, which would encourage victims to report
their victimization (Carr, 2005; Carr & Ward, 2006).
Violence Against Women on College Campuses
Sexual assault is considered the most prevalent violent crime on American
colleges today (Neft & Levine, 1997), with an estimated annual 350 rapes per
10,000-female student body in an individual college (Fisher, Cullen, & Turner,
2000), as well as non-sexual physical assault and hate crimes (Roark, 1993). The rate
of 38 rapes per 1,000 women in the pioneer study by Koss et al. (1987) was further
supported by a study by Fisher et al. (1998) that demonstrated a rate of 30 rapes and
sexual assaults per 1,000 students (for a similar period of time), the majority of
which (a mean of 16.7) occurred on campus.
Moreover, a significant number of assaults that meet the legal definition of
rape are reportedly perpetrated by 7.7% of college men, while 25% of men engage in
other kinds of sexually aggressive behaviors (Koss et al., 1987). The research also
suggests that, just as women often fail to recognize their own victimization as rape
(Fisher et al., 2000), men tend to fail to recognize the coerciveness and
aggressiveness of their sexual behaviors (Koss et al., 1987). That implies that a
significantly larger proportion of college men might be involved in sexual violence
against college women than what most reports show.
9
Impact and Costs of Violence
The effects of sexual violence on the survivors is significant and multi-
faceted, ranging from health problems resulting from physical injuries, sexually
transmitted diseases, and pregnancies to psychological symptoms such as post-
traumatic stress disorder, depression, and suicidal ideation, some of which may last
up to several years (Browne, 1993; Koss et al., 1987; White & Humphrey, 1993). In
addition, survivors often experience shame, fear, and denial of what happened
(Harner, 2003), factors that significantly intensify the problem of underreporting.
In addition to the direct impact on survivors, cases of sexual violence affect
the alleged perpetrators (Roark, 1989), as well as other students, faculty, and the
campus community in a number of ways (Carr, 2005). The costs of violence to the
institution are also complex and so high that “the institution itself can become a
victim when sexual assault takes place within its boundaries” (Roark, 1989, p. 43).
Victims sometimes choose to leave campus either temporarily or permanently, and
the learning environment also may get disrupted for groups of other students, staff,
and faculty when the campus becomes preoccupied with the fear of violence or is
angered by what happened (Hoffman et al., 1998; Roark, 1989). The college may
need to increase its expenses, as well as its intervention/prevention programs, to
improve security measures. The institution’s image may suffer, which could lead to
additional monetary costs or losses (Hoffman et al., 1998).
The legal costs and repercussions often can be serious as well and may range
from liability issues (Hoffman et al., 1998) to lawsuits filed by students and their
10
families (Fisher, 1995). One such lawsuit filed by the parents of Jeanne Clery,
brutally murdered in her college dormitory room, contributed to the adoption of and
gave the name to the federal law currently known as the Clery Act. As a law that
requires colleges and universities to report crimes on campus to the federal
government, it is also part of the Student’s Right to Know and Campus Security Act
(Public Law 101-542) and, therefore, requires making that information accessible to
the public. Those institutions that are found in noncompliance with the Act may lose
their federal funding or be subject to fines (Carter, 2007). The compliance with this
law by all U.S. college campuses receiving federal funding is ensured by the
Department of Education, which gathers and sorts the information and later reports it
to Congress.
Addressing Violence on Campus (Clery Act)
The federal effort to combat violence against women in the form of the Clery
Act, the concern and interest towards this problem in the media and literature, and
the increased responsibilities of colleges to face the problem, as a result of legal and
liability suits, have led colleges to the realization of the necessity to address crime on
campus in one way or another. The adoption of the Jeanne Clery Act in 1990
followed the sexual assault and murder of a female student, Jeanne Clery, at the
Leigh University campus in 1986. The case became public and led to the later law
enactment as a result of the efforts of Jeanne Clery’s family and families of other
students murdered on college campuses in the late 1980s. The Clery Act has been
one of the most known and pervasive ways of addressing the problem of violence on
11
college campuses. The Clery Act (Title II of the Student Right-to-Know and Campus
Security Act, Public Law 101-542) is part of federal legislation (Higher Education
Act) and its primary function is to gather information from all federally-funded
public and private institutions regarding crimes committed on their campuses,
adjacent territories, and college off-campus facilities (Security on Campus, Inc.,
2007). The required information includes crime statistics in seven major categories
of crime, as defined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), including sexual
violence, as represented by forcible sex offenses and security policy statements,
including sexual assault policies.
In addition to the primary purpose of reporting crime information so as to
allow for informed decisions by students, there are five additional purposes, as
identified by Janosik and Gregory (2003). They include: (a) improving policies and
violence response protocols; (b) improving safety programs on campus; (c) raising
students’ awareness of their safety on campus; (d) reducing campus crime; and (e)
eliminating or reducing the possibility of hiding or understating crime statistics by
campus officials.
The main two goals singled out by researchers are making crime statistics
available to the public to increase awareness and encouraging institutions to develop
policies and procedures to address crime on campus (Fisher et al., 2002, Gregory &
Janosik, 2003). Those include a number of domains such as policy creation and
development, awareness and education/prevention programs, safety programs, and
staff training. The second goal rests on the assumption that the information on
12
campus crime indicates to an institution how well they are doing in regard to
improving campus safety. It was also assumed that institutions with higher crime
rates would be more concerned about losing their potential “clients” if they do not
take the necessary measures to improve their crime statistics (Sloan et al., 1997).
Statement of the Problem
The Clery Act has been the most important response to college crimes in the
history of American higher education. The positive impact of the Act has been
acknowledged in such important areas as providing easy access to information on
campus crimes, providing students with the information they need to select a college
as well as to protect themselves, providing colleges with the information they need to
respond to and prevent crimes, increasing campus crime reporting, improving law
enforcement practices and procedures, and creating and increasing awareness of
crime on American college campuses in general (Carter, 2002; Gregory & Janosik,
2003; Janosik & Gehring, 2003; Janosik & Gregory, 2003).
Unfortunately, despite the significance of the Act, there have been serious
problems associated with both its implementation and effectiveness. The Department
of Education has been repeatedly criticized by Congress for failing to endorse the
Clery Act on college campuses, while colleges have been condemned in the media
either for trying to preserve their positive image, rather than improving students’
safety, or for being confused over how campus crimes need to be reported (Fisher et
al., 2002; Gregory & Janosik, 2002). Most importantly, the Act is not perceived to
have had any positive impact on campus crime rates (Janosik & Gregory, 2003).
13
Victimization studies and research reports largely support this perception, especially
in regard to rapes and sexual assaults among college women.
The reason for the legislation’s failures may be that, despite the fact that
prevention and awareness programs aimed at educating students about sexual assault
and interpersonal violence are part of the federal requirements, most institutions of
higher education have been largely failing to fulfill these requirements (Burling,
1993). It also may be that the existing policies, protocols, and programs do not work
very well due to their format or approach (DeKeseredy, Schwartz, & Alvi, 2000;
Lee, Caruso, Goins, & Southerland, 2003).
College administrators are ultimately responsible for adherence to the state
and federal legislations regarding sexual violence on campus. Thus, there is a need
for research on violence and crime prevention strategies and programs used by
colleges. Although the literature on sexual violence prevention contains many
victimization studies, meta-analyses, and causal theories, there is no research
exploring the possible gap between student affairs professionals’ beliefs and
practices and the current research on prevention programming.
Purpose of the Study
In an effort to research the possible discrepancies between the current
literature and practices in sexual violence prevention, the purpose of this study was
to explore student affairs professionals’ perceptions of the effectiveness of specific
types of sexual violence prevention programs. Additionally, this study provided
information on whether there are any patterns in student affairs professionals’
14
perceptions of different approaches towards violence prevention, based on their
demographic characteristics, professional background, size, and type of the
institution, and their perceptions of violence as a problem.
Research Questions
Two research questions were developed to guide this study:
1. What sexual violence prevention programs do student affairs professionals
perceive as most effective?
2. Is there any pattern in student affairs professionals’ perceptions of violence
prevention programs based on their gender, years in the field, professional level, unit
they work in, size and type of the institution, and perceptions of violence as a
problem?
Importance of the Study
Violence on college campuses and sexual violence, in particular, as well as
the Clery Act have been subjects of extensive discussion and debate. Additionally,
there is a fair amount of research on which strategies prove to be effective in raising
awareness among students, changing their beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes, and
ultimately preventing violence on and off campus. However, very little research has
been conducted on the effectiveness of the Clery Act in combating crime and
violence on campus. Moreover, no scientific research has been conducted on the
perceptions of student affairs professionals of sexual violence or the effective ways
to address it.
15
At the same time, we know from anecdotal evidence and the limited research
in the area of sexual violence on campus that student affairs professionals who are
responsible for providing an institutional response to campus violence have a wide
range of views regarding sexual violence, and often some administrators even fail to
recognize sexual violence as a problem. Determining what student affairs
professionals think of these issues will contribute to understanding why colleges
have been struggling in their attempts to provide an adequate response to violence
against women on campus and what needs to be changed about the current approach
to addressing campus violence.
Assumptions
The primary assumption or the premise of this study is that what student
affairs professionals think of sexual violence and its prevention, as well as which
approaches they consider effective, is highly correlated with their colleges’
successful or unsuccessful attempts to address and prevent sexual violence. The
study also rested on the following assumptions:
1. The questions used in the study survey would help to detect the
participants’ preferred sexual violence prevention approach.
2. The pattern of participants’ preferences in regard to a sexual violence
approach would predetermine or imply that those approaches are currently being
used on most of the campuses.
3. The participants would respond to survey questions honestly and to the
best of their knowledge and abilities.
16
4. The data would be gathered and analyzed using proper research methods
and protocols.
5. The results and implications of this study would have widespread
generalizability and applicability.
Delimitations
The study confined itself to the data collected during the Fall semester of
2005 from 1,495 participants who were members of three professional organizations
(American Association of Community Colleges [AACC], National Association of
Student Personnel Administrators [NASPA], and American College Personnel
Association [ACPA]) chosen by the researcher. The study focused on a portion of a
larger survey designed for several different research purposes, some of which are not
relevant to this study.
Limitations
1. This study was limited to the 1,495 individuals who participated in the
National “Clery Act” Survey during the Fall semester of 2005.
2. The study also was limited to the participants who were members of three
professional organizations: NASPA, ACPA, and AACC.
3. The study was further limited due to the combination of the stratified and
random samplings used and the general response rate of 12.1%, as well as different
response rates for various categories of participants.
4. The validity of this study is limited to the reliability of the instruments
used.
17
5. A final limitation of this study is the number of assumptions of the
theoretical framework of the study, which might be based on inaccuracies and
controversies found in previous research. Therefore, the findings of this study could
be subject to other interpretations.
Definition of Terms
Acquaintance Rape
Acquaintance rape is a rape act perpetrated by someone whom the victim
knows, however well (Bohmer & Parrot, 1993).
Aggression
Aggression is hostile, destructive, or violent behavior with the intention to
inflict physical injury on or harm another, including threats; unjustified verbal
attacks; overt, verbal, or gestural hostility; or any offensive action or procedure
(Berkowitz, 1993).
Career Level
For the purposes of this study, career levels were categorized in the following
manner.
Entry-level professionals are those student affairs administrators with fewer
than five years of professional work experience in higher education.
Mid-level professionals are those working in student affairs for 6 to 15 years,
yet having only limited managerial responsibility.
18
Senior-level professionals are those student affairs professionals with over 15
years of professional work experience and serving in director- or managerial-level
positions.
Senior student affairs officers are individuals holding the highest-ranking
student affairs position on their campus.
Consent
A typical definition of consent used for the purposes of this study is that
presented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): “words or overt
actions by a person who is legally or functionally competent to give informed
approval, indicating a freely given agreement to have sexual intercourse or sexual
contact” (Basile & Saltzman, 2002, p. 9). By law in all 50 states, a person cannot be
legally or functionally competent if: (a) he or she is mentally ill or developmentally
retarded; (b) under the effects of drugs, alcohol, or sleep; or (c) underage (e.g..
California law on sexual assault).
Date Rape
Date rape is a rape act that occurs when the victim is raped while on a date
and by a date (Bohmer & Parrot, 1993).
Force
Typical research articles on violence do not define the term force, although it
is frequently used to describe the components of different types of violence. For the
purpose of this study, force is defined as a capacity or power to cause influence or
change on a body and a key factor in any definition of violence.
19
Professional Associations
AACC is the American Association of Community Colleges, the primary
advocacy organization for the nation's community colleges. The Association
represents more than 1,100 associate degree-granting institutions and approximately
10 million students.
ACPA is the American College Personnel Association, an association whose
members are dedicated to enhancing the worth, dignity, potential, and uniqueness of
each individual within post-secondary educational institutions and to serving society.
ASJA is the Association for Student Judicial Affairs, an organization of
professional educators, many of whom hold responsibility for administering
standards of student conduct within colleges and universities.
IACLEA is the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement
Administrators, a professional association that provides educational resources,
professional development, and advocacy to members of the campus law enforcement
and safety community.
NASPA is the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, an
association that provides professional development and advocacy for student affairs
educators and administrators who share the responsibility for a campus-wide focus
on the student experience.
NACUBO is the National Association of College and University Business
Officers, a professional association that serves over 2,500 higher education
20
institutions. The organization membership primarily consists of chief administrative
officers and business and financial officers.
Rape
A relatively common definition of rape, used for the purposes of this study, is
“[s]exual penetration with the use of force or threat of force (or those situations in
which no force is required, as when the victim is mentally incapacitated through
alcohol or drug use, mental disability, lack of consciousness, etc.)” (Lonsway, 1996,
p. 230).
Sexual Assault
Sexual assault and rape, including date and acquaintance rape, are frequently
used interchangeably, although, for the purposes of this study, sexual assault is used
as a more general term that includes all types of unwanted sexual activity, including
rape (Bohmer & Parrot, 1993; Koss et al., 1987).
Student Affairs Professional
A student affairs professional is the higher education administrator
responsible for providing student services and is dedicated to the holistic
development of students through the integration of academics and co-curricular
experiences.
Organization of the Study
This chapter presented the introduction, background of the problem,
statement of the problem, purpose of the study, research questions, importance of the
study, assumptions, delimitations, limitations, and definition of terms. In Chapter 2,
21
the literature on sexual violence and prevention programming is reviewed.
Specifically, the chapter provides an examination of the theories of violence against
women as well as the theories explaining barriers and factors contributing to
effective violence prevention programming.
Chapter 3 contains the methodology used in the study, including a description
of the research population, research design, data collection procedures,
instrumentation, and data analysis. Chapter 4 presents the findings of the study,
while Chapter 5 includes a summary of the findings, their interpretation, and
recommendations for future research and implications for higher education
institution professionals, educators, and policy makers in regard to sexual violence
prevention.
22
CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
While violence against women, in particular, sexual violence, on college
campuses is a widely recognized problem, there is still a great deal of debate related
to the causes of sexual violence, the notion of consent, the role of alcohol, and even
what constitutes rape in general. One hypothesis for this study is that administrators
are implementing prevention programs on the basis of their assumptions about why
violence occurs or stereotypes about sexual violence, rather than on the basis of
research regarding intervention effectiveness. Therefore, the purpose of this literature
review is to identify the prevention approaches in the area of sexual violence on
campus and theories of sexual violence supporting them, as well as the research
evidence regarding the effectiveness of these approaches.
What is Being Studied: Definition Issues
In the past few decades, there has been a significant increase in research on
violence and aggression, including campus and sexual violence (Belknap, Fisher, &
Cullen, 1999; Kilpatrick, 2004). Several federal and independent national statistics
databases have been established to measure the incidence and prevalence of sexual
violence and rape, in particular. These include the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR),
the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), the National Violence Against
Women Survey (NVAWS), the National Women’s Study (NWS), the National
College Health Risk Behavior Survey, the U.S. Naval Recruit Health Study, the
Canadian National Survey, and the “benchmark” Sexual Experiences Survey (SES;
23
Koss et al., 1987). In addition, an array of research and literature on the incidence
and prevalence of sexual violence (Banyard et al., 2005; DeKeseredy & Kelly, 1993;
Gross, Winslet, Roberts, & Gohm, 2006; Neufield, McNamara, & Ertl, 1999; Smith,
White, & Holland, 2003), reporting of sexual victimization (Bledsoe, Yankeelov,
Barbee, & Antle, 2004; Clay-Warner & Burt, 2005; Du Mont, Miller, & Myhr, 2003;
Fisher et al., 2003), the impact of violence on the victims (Cortina, Swan, Fitzgerald,
& Waldo, 1998; Fisher & Sloan, 2003; Follette, Polusny, Bechtle, & Naugle, 1996;
Golding, Stein, Siegel, Burnam, & Sorenson, 1988; Logan, Shannon, Cole, &
Walker, 2006; Santiago, McCall-Perez, Gorcey, & Beigel, 1985), possible causes or
theories of violence (Drieschner & Lange, 1999; Thornhill & Palmer, 2000), and
violence prevention (DeKeseredy et al., 2000; Dusenbury, Falco, Lake, Brannigan,
& Bosworth, 1997; Gidycz et al., 2001) has contributed to an increase in interest in
this area. The past 20 years alone have generated 42% of journal articles, 98% of
chapters and books, and 462 published dissertations (87% of the total published) on
rape and sexual assault (Koss, 2005).
Despite the interest in the topic and the number of publications, all this
research has created more confusion and brought about more criticism and debate
about what constitutes sexual victimization and its rates. For example, the prevalence
rates for rape (completed and attempted) among females in the major victimization
surveys and studies of the past 20 years have ranged from 11% (Cortina et al., 1998)
to 36% (Kilpatrick, Saunders, Veronen, Best, & Von, 1987; Merrill et al., 1998). In
the two major annual surveys (UCR and NCVS), rape prevalence ranges from .064%
24
to .103% in 2003, while the 1-year rate of victimization for college women found by
Fisher et al. (2000) was 2.8% for the same type of victimization. Among college
females, the rates calculated for longer than 1-year periods range from 11% (Cortina
et al., 1998) to 27.5% (Koss et al., 1987). In a study of a narrower population of
sorority women, the prevalence rates for completed and attempted rape exceeded
40% (Copenhaver & Grauerholz, 1991). Similarly, prevalence surveys in other
countries differ in their results and fail to provide more clarity or consistency in
estimating violence against women, which makes it nearly impossible to conduct any
cross-national comparisons (Hagemann-White, 2001; Walby & Myhill, 2001).
The attempts to estimate the extent of the problem depend on two factors: its
definition and how it is measured (Gelles, 2000). In addition to purely technical
(circumstantial/design) differences (e.g. different time frames, populations/sources,
sample sizes, presence or absence of prior victimizations, types of violence included
in a study) influencing the outcomes, there is no consensus as to what is measured or
what criteria should be used to identify violence against women and its specific types
(Belknap et al., 1999; DeKeseredy, 2000; Ellis, 1989; Gelles, 2000; Hagemann-
White, 2001; Kilpatrick, 2004; Koss, 1996; Koss et al., 1987; Schwartz, 2000).
Cortina et al. (1998) admit that their prevalence rates might have been higher
had they not used a very “conservative” definition of rape in their study. Indeed,
compared to Koss et al. (1987), who used the then-legal definition of Ohio state (and
included anal and oral intercourse in the definition of rape), Cortina et al. (1998)
only included vaginal intercourse in their definition. Their criteria of force also
25
excluded the inability to give consent by a victim under the influence of drugs or
alcohol. At the same time, these criteria are included in most states’ legal definitions
of rape, while rapes that involve use of alcohol account for about 50% of all rapes
(Koss, 1988; Muehlenhard & Linton, 1987; Ullman, Karabatsos, & Koss, 1999). In
addition, studies on gender differences in violence and aggression get confounded
with the relationship and sexual violence research and further increase the confusion
and disagreement among researchers as to what acts should be included into the
definition of violence against women (Hagemann-White, 2001).
Defining Violence
Research on violence has used a multitude of definitions, concepts, and
terms, leading to difficulty in developing a consensus as to the definition (Gelles,
1985). Many concepts have been used interchangeably. Violence can frequently
mean aggression and abuse, violence against women, domestic violence, intimate
partner violence, sexual violence, domestic abuse, rape, and sexual assault. Sexual
assault has been used interchangeably with rape, sexual attack, sexual coercion, and
forced sexual intercourse or contact.
Dictionary definitions of violence (and other terms related to it) also vary and
present it as a true poly-semantic word. Typically, according to dictionary
definitions, the word “violence” has several meanings that cumulatively characterize
it as a force or an act of behavior that is physical, intense, abusive, unjust, and
destructive/injurious. The words “aggression” and “aggressive” also frequently
accompany the word “violence.” For example, violence as “any act of aggression
26
and abuse which causes or intends to cause injury, in some cases criminal, or harm to
persons, and (to a lesser extent) animals or property” (“Violence,” 2006).
Besides the purely linguistic “richness” of the term, the definitions of
violence in specific research areas differ due to the fact that it is a social construct
(Muehlenhard & Kimes, 1999). Further, it is both a cultural concept in how it reflects
what different cultures perceive or do not perceive as violence (e.g. abortion, child or
wife abuse, marital rape, capital punishment) and a political concept in how it is used
in the battlefields by those who are at power and those who are not (Gelles, 1985).
From a social constructionist perspective, the concept of violence has been changing
over the past 30 years due to the influence of underrepresented groups, especially
women, progressing from being regarded as an act perpetrated by a stranger to
include perpetration by an acquaintance, intimate partner, or a family member
(Muehlenhard & Kimes, 1999).
Therefore, the definition of violence has been regarded by at least two
perspectives as an act harmful to the victim, in terms of physical harm, threats of
physical harm, psychological and emotional aggression/abuse, sexual assaults, and
neglect, and as only an act of physical violence (Gelles, 2000). Both approaches use
relatively broad definitions of violence, although the second approach restricts it to
the concept of physical force or harm.
One of the most used definitions of violence in human violence research is
that of Gelles and Straus (1979) and Straus, Gelles, and Steinmetz (1981) that
describes as violent any act with the intention to harm another person, however
27
slight, serious, or deadly the harm is. This definition is less broad due to its
adherence to the “physical” nature of violence, even though the range of physical
force applied has a broad range from grabbing or spanking to causing serious injuries
and death. A much broader definition of violence is that proposed by feminist
scholars that includes any physical, sexual, or verbal act that is experienced by an
individual as a threat, invasion, or assault and that may hurt, degrade, or deprive that
individual of his or her ability to contact other individuals (Koss et al., 1994). The
use of a broad and “multidimensional” definition of violence is proposed by Hegarty,
Sheehan, and Schonfeld (1999), who believe that any definition of violence should
“take into account the varying types, severity, frequency, and meaning of the abuse”
(p. 401). From the perspective of campus violence, Roark (1993) formulates violence
as “behavior which by intent, action, and/or outcome harms another person” (p. 10).
Physical, including sexual, and verbal, including psychological, types of abuse are
included into this definition of violence.
Whether the definition is narrow or broad clearly affects the reported rates of
victimization, along with many other factors such as lifetime versus annual
prevalence, the number of measures, and others (Schwartz, 2000; Smith, 1994). The
legal and older conservative definitions are typically responsible for lower levels of
victimization, and feminist broader definitions are typically responsible for higher
levels of victimization (Smith, 1994). Operationalizing the definitions of violence is
difficult because there is no commonly adopted terminology, while the topic of
violence, particularly sexual violence, is an arena for ardent disputes in modern
28
culture (Walby & Myhill, 2001). As a result, there is no consensus as to how broad
or narrow the definition of violence needs to be and how specific types of violence
should be defined (Gelles, 2000). From the social constructionist perspective, despite
the past three decades of progress in expanding society’s understanding of violence,
a true definition of violence may not exist, and the struggles to define and
conceptualize violence and its components are “ongoing” (Muehlenhard & Kimes,
1999).
Defining Violence Against Women
The term violence against women, or VAW, is frequently used
interchangeably with such terms as sexual violence, domestic violence, intimate
partner violence, abuse of women, or gender-based violence. Similar to “violence,”
despite the multitude of definitions, researchers distinguish several approaches to
defining “violence against women”: (a) criminal justice approach; (b) public health
approach (Kilpatrick, 2004); and (c) feminist approach, which also can be
characterized as a political approach (Gelles, 2000; Muehlenhard & Kimes, 1999;
Smith, 1994). In addition, two other perspectives should be mentioned: (a) a research
perspective, which strives for a narrower definition of violence that can be grounded
in a theory and operationalized with high reliability and validity; and (b) a
humanistic perspective, which is broader perspective and captures the full range of
harm inflicted on an individual (Gelles, 2000).
An example of such a humanistic approach to defining VAW, and its first
official definition, is the Declaration of the United Nations from December 30, 1993
29
(United Nations, 1993). The United Nations defines “violence against women” as
“any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical,
sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts,
coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private
life” (para. 14).
A more research-oriented approach is used by Campbell (2000), who
reserves the term “violence” exclusively for physical and sexual assault and leaves
the broader definition to the term “abuse.” The role of the feminist approach to
defining VAW is particularly important because violence against women, as a term,
was coined as a result of the feminist movement and its influence on the field of
violence. Moreover, the feminist approach deeply influenced all other approaches as
well (Bohmer & Parrot, 1993; Kilpatrick, 2004). The feminist perspective is identical
to that of the United Nations in that it regards violence against women as gender-
based violence, recognizing the subordinate status of women in modern society.
Besides physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, however, it also recognizes
economic abuse (Heise, Ellsberg, & Gottemoeller, 1999). By broadening the
definition of violence, feminists emphasize victims’ perceptions of their experiences
(Muehlenhard & Kimes, 1999; Renzetti, 2004; Smith, 1994). Another contribution of
the feminist approach is the distinction between violence against women and
interpersonal violence.
Although easily confused, violence against women is not the same as
interpersonal violence in that, in most cases, women are emotionally and financially
30
involved with those who perpetrate violent acts on them, as opposed to men, who are
typically victimized by a stranger or a casual acquaintance (Heise et al., 1999).
While being very similar to intimate partner violence (Saltzman, Fanslow,
McMahon, & Shelley, 2002), violence against women also emphasizes the fact that
women are more likely to receive violence from an intimate partner than are men.
Every approach has its own purposes, advantages, and implications
(Kilpatrick, 2004; Muehlanhard & Kimes, 1999). Legal definitions have the official
“weight” of objectivity and the culture they support (Muehlanhard & Kimes, 1999).
The public health approach regards violence against women as a subset of
interpersonal violence (Kilpatrick, 2004), with a particular focus on the injuries
inflicted upon women. Research approach definitions strive to be objective and
precise (Gelles, 2000). Feminist and humanistic approaches strive for more fair
definitions that empower the victims and protect their rights (Muehlanhard & Kimes,
1999; Smith, 1994). None of the approaches is truly objective, however. Therefore,
the decision as to what definition should be used is frequently made by different
groups, with different implications and is controversial by nature in how it is related
to power and politics (Muehlenhard & Kimes, 1999).
Taking into consideration that the most prevalent crime affecting college
students is sexual assault (Neft & Levine, 1997) and women are the main victims of
sexual crimes (Bachman, 1998; Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000), this research favors the
term violence against women, with an emphasis on its components, sexual assault
and rape, to any other terminology that also may be appropriate or related to these
31
terms. Although it is understood that violence against women includes, along with
sexual violence, intimate partner abuse (Heise et al., 1999), as well as different types
of sexual violence other than sexual assault, such as sexual harassment, stalking, and
campus dating violence (Carr, 2005), for the purposes of this research, emphasis is
placed exclusively on sexual violence and only two of its components: sexual assault
and rape. While recognizing the value of the feminist definition of violence, this
research will use the term violence to mean only physical and/or sexual assault, as
suggested by Campbell (2000). The broader feminist meaning of VAW will be
applied only to sexual assault or rape as a means to recognize their impact on the
victim.
Defining Sexual Violence
Recently the CDC has developed the official public health uniform
definitions of sexual violence and its components. Sexual violence, as defined by
CDC (Basile & Saltzman, 2002), is
nonconsensual completed or attempted contact between the penis and the
vulva or the penis and the anus involving penetration, however slight;
nonconsensual contact between the mouth and the penis, vulva, or anus;
nonconsensual penetration of the anal or genital opening of another person
by a hand, or other object; nonconsensual intentional touching; either directly
or through the clothing, of the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or
buttocks; or nonconsensual non-contact acts of a sexual nature such as
voyeurism and verbal or behavioral sexual harassment. All of the above also
qualify as sexual violence if they are committed against someone who is
unable to consent or refuse (p. 9).
For campus sexual violence, the American College Health Association
(ACHA) includes the following components: sexual harassment, sexual assault,
32
stalking, and campus dating violence (Carr, 2005). From these definitions it can be
concluded that sexual violence is different from violence against women in that it
can be semantically broader by being gender-neutral (inclusive of both genders) and,
at the same time, more narrow by not including non-sexual types of abuse. Due to
the fact that violence against women can be a component of sexual violence and vice
versa (sexual violence can be a component of violence against women), depending
on which term one studies as a broader concept, and for the purposes of this research,
these terms are used interchangeably.
Factors Salient to the Conversation of Sexual Violence
As the definitions of rape and sexual assault are typically a product of and
reflect the nature of a campus culture, other cultural and situational factors reflect the
extent of cultural proneness to rape. For example, Sanday (1996) considers a society
as rape-prone when it is characterized by a high incidence of rape and when rape is
viewed as an expression of masculinity and a way to punish or threaten women.
Koss, Leonard, Beezley, and Oros (1985) similarly view the values and attitudes that
foster sexual aggression as signs of a “sick” society. Typically, researchers in the
field of sexual violence on campus distinguish the following factors as affecting how
sexual violence is perceived and responded to: (a) rape-supportive attitudes and
beliefs; (b) beliefs about masculinity; (c) peer pressure; and (d) alcohol consumption.
Rape-Supportive Attitudes and Beliefs
Rape-supportive attitudes and beliefs is an extensive area that includes a
variety of concepts and combines different aspects of attitudes and beliefs that can be
33
viewed in different ways: attitudes about violence in general and against specific
groups of people, (hostile) attitudes about women, beliefs about or attributions
regarding causes of rape that include rape myths, and even personal values in cases
when violence is a preferred method of resolving an interpersonal conflict. It is also
an important area in the sense that attitudes and beliefs about violence against
women can both contribute to sexual aggressiveness, when they are shared by
potential perpetrators, and significantly influence interventions and prevention, when
they are shared by people responsible and involved in that field.
Beliefs and attitudes shared by society and among researchers and college
administrators reflect models of perceived causes of rape. Two major causal rape
models are distinguished by researchers: an individual one and a
societal/sociocultural one (Cowan, 2000; Cowan & Campbell, 1995; Cowan &
Quinton, 1997; Koss et al., 1985). The individual model focuses on personality
characteristics and behaviors of both the perpetrator and the victim, such as
psychopathological and hypermasculine/aggressive characteristics for men and
sexual promiscuity for women. Generally, the individual causes blame either the
perpetrator or the victim. A wider multivariate version of such a model also
considers situational variables, such as male control (e.g., paying all expenses on a
date, providing transportation, choosing date sites), substance abuse, the relationship
between the victim and perpetrator, and the influences of peer groups (Berkowitz,
Burkhart, & Bourg, 1994).
34
The socio-cultural model views rape as a result of male socialization and
social dominance, a belief in the male gender supremacy over the female gender,
with the feelings of entitlement to sexual services and other rape-supportive beliefs
associated with it. With increasing evidence on all variables being collected,
multivariate and integrated models have become more and more popular. An
example of such an integrated model is that offered by Berkowitz et al. (1994),
which includes the perpetrator and victim socialization, personality and behavior
characteristics, and situational variables.
The types of rape-related attitudes and beliefs also can be grouped according
to who is to be blamed for rape: women (e.g., for being promiscuous, being dressed
provocatively), men (e.g., for perpetrating rape due to their hostility, pathologies, and
sexuality), or society (e.g., for encouraging rape behaviors through the patriarchal
system and male dominance, media supporting and enforcing male aggression
towards women). These three categories largely predict what direction prevention
measures would take on a college campus and what populations would be targeted.
Particularly important and influential in the area of violence prevention and
response are the beliefs that are stereotypical, prejudicial, and false in how they tend
to justify the perpetrator and shift the responsibility for sexual assault onto the
victim. Such beliefs have been termed by researchers as “rape myths” and are widely
spread in the modern society (Burt, 1991). Rape myths, in addition to exonerating
the perpetrator, underestimate or negate the effects of or even the fact of rape/sexual
assault occurrence.
35
Rape myths that blame the victim (so-called female precipitation) are most
common among men and the general population (Cowan, 2000). The rape myths that
excuse men’s rape behaviors as uncontrollable and part of their natural urge are also
widespread among both men and women. Women, however, accept rape myths to a
lesser degree than do men (Hinck & Thomas, 1999; Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1994;
White & Robinson Kurpius, 1999; White & Robinson Kurpius, 2002).
Rape-supportive attitudes, especially as they develop into rape myths, may
have the most implications for rape prevention programming on campus. For
example, administrators who believe in the male pathology/psychopathology myths
viewing rapists as predominantly mentally ill or psychopathic would most likely
believe that rape is either a not serious enough problem or that rape is mainly
perpetrated by strangers. Prevention programming in such cases either does not take
place at all or is oriented towards self-defense classes only. Similarly, prevention
programming would be oriented towards women only, if administrators believed in
female precipitation and male (uncontrollable) sexuality functions. Such programs
would teach women rape avoidance strategies, but would entirely exclude men from
education and, therefore, would keep reinforcing the belief systems that deny men’s
responsibility for sexual violence on campus (Berkowitz et al., 1994).
Beliefs About Masculinity and Their Role in Sexual Violence
A concept tightly connected with rape-supportive attitudes and rape myths is
masculinity. Masculinity is a social construction originally understood under the
gender identity paradigm. It is beliefs about what is “masculine” as opposed to
36
“feminine.” Recently, the expression “gender roles” has replaced “gender identity”
that had assumed fundamental differences between men and women and an entirely
oppositional character of their differences (Brooks, 2001). Gender roles, according to
this paradigm are, due to their being socially constructed, very often contradictory
and problematic and may lead to psychological dysfunctions (Brooks, 2001;
Kilmartin, 2001a; Lisak, Hopper, & Song, 1996; Pleck, 1995). The dysfunctional
character of masculinity manifests itself when “the traditional masculine role
socialization produces a wide range of interpersonal patterns and behaviors that are
profoundly harmful to society and to men themselves” (Brooks, 2001, p. 287). The
classic examples of such dysfunction are men’s violence and sexual assault.
While not entirely responsible, the traditional views of masculinity and
gender roles have been found to be a significant contributing factor to sexual
violence in a number of studies (Abbey & McAuslan, 2004; Dean & Malamuth,
1997; Eisler, Franchina, Moore, Honeycutt, & Rhatigan, 2000; Hill & Fischer, 2001;
Lisak et al., 1996; Loh, Gidycz, Lobo, & Luthra, 2005; Malamuth, Linz, Heavey,
Barnes, & Acker, 1995; Messerschmidt, 2000; Muehlenhard & Linton, 1987;
O’Donohue, McKay, & Schewe, 1996; Parrott & Zeichner, 2003; Scully, 1990;
Totten, 2003). All these studies demonstrate the interaction between traditional
masculine identity and other predictors of sexual assault perpetration, such as
personality characteristics, past histories, and situational factors.
Totten (2003), for example found that young males who adhere to patriarchal
beliefs about family and gender roles are most likely to use violence against women
37
to “keep them in line.” Young males in Totten’s study were most likely to use the
most severe forms of violence and to use all three types of violence against women
(sexual, physical, and emotional). Moreover, while true for all rapists, the correlation
between traditional attitudes and hostility towards women has been found to be even
stronger for those who deny the committed act of rape as opposed to those who
admit it (Scully, 1990). This finding confirms that the more traditional views of
gender roles are that more responsibility for rape and other forms of violence is
shifted onto women.
Malamuth et al.’s (1995) confluence model explains hostile masculinity as a
major path to sexual aggression and suggests that it is comprised of two interrelated
components: insecure and hostile-distrustful attitude towards women and
gratification from dominating and controlling women. The first component includes
such elements as fear of rejection (by women), the fear of women’s control through
their sexual appeal, and proneness to general hostility and hostility to women, in
particular. The second one can be understood from the perspective of living up to the
expectations of male superiority. In the area of sexual behaviors, hostile masculinity
can take the form of feeling a sense of entitlement to one’s needs satisfaction by
acting out one’s sexual impulses (Hill & Fischer, 2001).
An important implication of beliefs about masculinity for violence prevention
lies in the necessity of educating men about gender issues and the link between the
traditional views of masculinity and violence and aggression. As Capraro (1994) and
Kilmartin (2001a) noted, rape prevention may address many components and
38
contributors to the culture of violence, but it can bring about the biggest change only
when it addresses the conservative and prevailing models of masculinity. This is
especially true in a college campus culture, where the existing social groups such as
fraternities often purposely work on constructing a conservative type of masculinity
and commodification of women, leading eventually to all kinds of sexual violence,
including gang rape (Loh et al., 2005; Martin & Hummer, 1989; Sanday, 1996).
Alcohol Involvement
The relationship between alcohol abuse and sexual violence is not disputed in
the literature; the use of alcohol by either the perpetrator or victim or both is highly
correlated with sexual violence. Such a relationship has been demonstrated in a
variety of studies (e.g. Abbey, 1991; Abbey & McAuslan, 2004; Abbey, McAuslan,
& Ross, 1998; Carr & VanDeusen, 2004; Corbin, Bernat, Calhoun, McNair, & Seals,
2001; Gross et al., 2006; Koss et al., 1987; Muehlenhard & Linton, 1987; Ullman et
al., 1999). Although the ground-breaking and most methodologically praised study
by Koss et al. (1987) reported that 74% of the rape perpetrators and 55% of the rape
victims had consumed alcohol prior to the assault, an average of 50% of college
sexual assaults typically involves the use of alcohol (Abbey, 2002). In a majority of
the alcohol-related cases, both the victim and the perpetrator consume alcohol prior
to the assault (Abbey et al., 1998).
The heavy involvement of alcohol in sexual assaults on campus does not
imply a direct one-way causal relationship between the consumption of alcohol and
sexual violence. The role of alcohol, while quite obvious, is still unclear. Some
39
researchers see alcohol as a cause of violence, while others see it as an excuse. The
causal relationship in that case could be of the opposite character: men drink alcohol
prior to sexual assault to use it as an excuse for their pre-planned violent behaviors
(Abbey, 2002) or both men and women drink because they think it may enhance
their sexuality and create other positive changes (Abbey et al., 1998; Corbin et al.,
2001). In the literature, this perspective is often called the expectancy model.
The causal role of alcohol in sexual violence is based on the belief that
alcohol directly leads to aggression by affecting the brain centers responsible for
inhibitory control over behavior, the so-called disinhibition model. This model is not
particularly popular among researchers, as alcohol does not cause the same effects
(e.g., aggressiveness) in every individual (Giancola, 2002). The role of alcohol is
also strongly correlated with other multiple factors typically associated with sexual
violence such as risky social situations or contexts (e.g., a man’s initiating the date,
paying all the expenses, driving, miscommunication about sex), perpetrator’s
characteristics (e.g., a man’s acceptance of traditional sex roles, adversarial beliefs
about relationships, rape myths), perpetrators’ sexual experiences and practices,
victim’s past victimization history, and the victim’s ability to resist (Abbey, 2002;
Carr & VanDeusen, 2004; Corbin et al., 2001; Muehlenhard & Linton, 1987;
Ullman, 2002), which makes the causal relationship even more convoluted.
Claims about alcohol-induced disinhibition and aggression may not be
entirely groundless, however (Abbey et al., 1998; Gross et al., 2006; Sochting,
Fairbrother, & Koch, 2004), and have become a basis for the cognitive models of
40
rape. Cognitive models view the role of alcohol as rather indirect; it is the
impairment of cognitive functions, such as inhibitory control of one’s behavior,
information processing (e.g., attention allocation), fear reactions (e.g., signals of
punishment and threat), self-awareness (e.g., ability to evaluate self-relevant
information), and social cue perception mechanisms, by alcohol consumption that
may potentially lead to sexual aggression (Giancola, 2002).
The mechanisms through which alcohol becomes a significant risk factor for
sexual assault on college campus have been largely unexplored. It is clear, however,
that the risk of being assaulted and being assaulted more severely increases when one
or both parties were drinking prior to the assault and when one or both parties have
abused alcohol in their lifetime prior to the assault (Corbin et al., 2001; Koss &
Gaines, 1993; Ullman et al., 1999). It is also important to remember how strong the
link between alcohol, sex, and aggression is in modern society (Abbey et al., 1998).
Therefore, alcohol consumption by college students is a very important
component of sexual violence prevention. It is especially important from a legal
perspective, as persons incapacitated by alcohol or other substances are unable to
give legal consent to sexual activity. With most universities presently incorporating
the legal notion of consent into their student conduct policies, the two concepts
should be an integral part of any violence prevention program on campus.
A certain degree of cautiousness, however, should be observed when
introducing this component into prevention programs. Students should not be led to
believe that alcohol is ever a single causal factor in any sexual assault and that
41
abstaining from consuming alcohol by men and women would resolve the problem
of sexual violence (Ullman, 2002). Nor should they be led to believe that the effects
of alcohol on one’s cognitive functions justifies violent behaviors. Sexual assault
prevention programs need to emphasize that it is, rather, always a combination of
factors (beliefs, experiences, and risky situations and contexts) that puts people at
risk of victimization and perpetration (Abbey et al., 1998; Ullman, 2002).
Peer Pressure
Peer pressure or influence as part of male role socialization has been found
particularly important in men’s decisions to engage in sexual aggression and rape,
similar to the decision to engage in other potentially dangerous activities such as
drug and alcohol abuse, smoking, and other types of violence (Newman & Newman,
1986). This is especially true of college students, as they represent the population or
age group that, developmentally, is particularly vulnerable to social and peer
influences and needs to fit into new peer networks (Flezzani & Benshoff, 1999,
Perry, 1970).
In a typical patriarchal society with strictly demarcated gender roles, strong
beliefs about masculinity, and prevalent mythology about sexual violence, males
typically prefer to socialize (on a non-intimate level) with other males and have
misogynistic attitudes toward women (Easteal, 1992). In such a culture, masculine
identities and gender ideologies are interwoven; gender beliefs begin to form in early
childhood and, typically, criminal behaviors are qualified (by their perpetrators) as
“acting according to their values and those of their peers and families” (Totten, 2003,
42
p. 85). In addition to the pressure from the need to be masculine itself, men pressure
other men to be athletic and sexual to prove their masculinity (Berkowitz et al.,
1994; Messerschmidt, 2000). In addition, often those who encounter challenges in
meeting masculinity challenges (in physical/athletic and sexual performance) are
abused by peers and, in the need to defend their masculine identity, resort to sexual
violence to accomplish their masculine gender identity (Messerschmidt, 2000).
Therefore, in a rape-prone culture, men adopt rape-supportive attitudes and
behaviors to display their masculinity and be accepted by their peers or because they
do not get accepted by their peers and need to re-establish their masculinity outside
the peer group.
Classic examples of a rape-prone culture with strong peer influences in
American colleges are fraternities. Although rarely studied, fraternity membership is
considered to be a significant predictor of sexual violence perpetration, and the
fraternity is a highly sexualized and rape-supportive environment (Berkowitz et al.,
1994; DeKeseredy & Schwartz, 1998; Kanin, 1985; Koss & Dinero, 1989; Koss &
Gaines, 1993; Loh et al., 2005; Martin & Hummer, 1989; Sanday, 1996; Schwartz &
DeKeseredy, 1997). According to Berkowitz et al. (1994), most gang rapes on
campus are perpetrated by members of such all-male groups. Researchers explain
this phenomenon as a result of fraternities’ promoting of a narrow conception of
masculinity in general and, specifically, by promoting stereotypical views of
masculinity and gender roles, including an emphasis on dominance, physical force
and violence, sex as a sport, commodification of women, and use of alcohol as a
43
weapon (Martin & Hummer, 1989; Schwartz, & DeKeseredy, 1997). Women are
perceived as commodities to be used to satisfy members’ sexual needs, while alcohol
is used to reduce victims’ resistance to sexual violence and justify any embarrassing
behaviors committed by members (Abbey, 2002). Group secrecy or a pact of silence
commonly adopted by fraternities contributes to perpetuating sexual violence, as it
diminishes the likelihood of reporting crimes and punishment for individual and
gang rapes (Schwartz & DeKeseredy, 1997).
When conceptualizing sexual violence prevention programming on campus,
college administrators need to take into consideration the presence (or absence) of
student groups that may be condoning a culture of violence and rape. Not every
campus fraternity engages in sexual violence, and fraternities are not the only groups
with peer norms that promote sexual victimization of women. Nevertheless, the
research on college fraternities suggests that fraternity members are typically at risk
of perpetrating violent acts and sometimes even gang rape. Other groups, however,
should not be neglected, either.
Male athletes is another category of students that is similar in its
characteristics to fraternities and is most likely, along with fraternity men, to commit
gang rape (Bohmer & Parrot, 1993; O’Sullivan, 1991; Schwartz & DeKeseredy,
1997). Similarly to fraternities, it is not uncommon for sororities to rely on getting
drunk as an excuse to engage in potentially embarrassing (and possibly risky)
behaviors (Abbey, 2002; Norris, Nurius, & Dimeff, 1996; Schwartz & DeKeseredy,
1997). Therefore, risk-reduction and rape-avoidance tactics, along with substance
44
use education, would be most appropriate for that female student population.
Naturally, prevention programs targeting peer norms would ideally include the issues
of gender, rape-supportive attitudes, alcohol-related sexual coercion and aggression,
and empathy towards victims of sexual assault (Berkowitz, 1994; Carr &
VanDeusen, 2004). Such programs are most successful when they are developed by
men, for men, and are peer-led (Berkowitz, 1994; Capraro, 1994).
Institutional Response to Violence
Types of Responses
The notable diversity in the definitions of sexual violence and its theoretical
components not only causes differences in the reported levels of incidence and
prevalence of violence on college campuses, but also reflects how society responds
to violence in terms of conducting research, reporting, intervening, and prevention
(Brookover Bourque, 1989). A variety of approaches and strategies can be seen in
how institutions view violence and its prevention (Bohmer & Parrot, 1993; Fisher,
1995; Lonsway, 1996). Those include policies, protocols, lighting improvements,
counseling, advocacy for women, and educational and safety programs. Each
approach contains implicit messages regarding the philosophy of the institution’s
administration in terms of the seriousness of the problem, what causes it, and its
attitudes towards acceptable male and female behavior (Bohmer & Parrot, 1993).
Fisher (1995) distinguishes three types of response to crime and violence on
campus: legislative, judicial, and administrative. The judicial response is represented
by courts’ response to crime on campus. If, a few decades ago, courts largely helped
45
phase out the in loco parentis system by introducing the notion that college students
are adults, later, in the late 1970s and 1980s, courts imposed two particular duties
pertaining to victimization on campus, thus making colleges at least partially liable
for students’ physical safety: the duty to warn students of the known risks and the
duty to provide them with adequate security protection. Then, as a federal and state
legislative response to crime, important legislations were adopted in the early 1990s,
including the Campus Security Act of 1990 and its amendments and state campus
crime reporting laws, both requiring crime data gathering and submission, with some
states specifying how the data need to be distributed and requiring the description of
security polices and provisions.
While important, judicial and legislative responses have been marked by
certain problems. The courts established the doctrine of foreseeability through which
they could judge the institution’s efforts to ensure student safety, but the courts have
not always agreed on what this concept means and how it should be interpreted
(Fisher, 1995). In addition, only a very small portion of college crime cases, and
even a smaller portion of sexual assault cases, is ever heard in court. The Campus
Security (Clery) Act has been criticized on several levels for providing information
that is inconsistent and inaccurate, as well as ignoring certain crimes, in other words,
flawed data (Fisher, 1995), the confusion related to the types of crimes that need to
be reported (Gregory & Janosik, 2002), and providing results that are more symbolic
than substantive in nature (Fisher et al., 2002).
46
While limited by nature, the judicial and legislative changes and reforms
have provided the grounds for colleges to assume an important share of
responsibility by raising the college communities’ awareness and expectations. It is
also a federal requirement, as part of the Campus Security Act, that colleges create
and report on the policies, procedures, programs, and practices to the Department of
Justice on a yearly basis (Fisher, 1995; Janosik & Gregory, 2003; Security on
Campus, Inc., 2007).
Although overlapping each other in their practices and purposes, three types
of administrative responses have been introduced in the past few decades: (a) tertiary
prevention, serving primarily as a response to violence or an intervention by
reducing the damages that have already been inflicted; (b) secondary prevention,
identifying existing problems and attempts to solve them through a taskforce or
committee; and (c) primary prevention, preventing new cases of victimization
through education addressing the causes and changing the attitudes contributing to
the problem (Potter, Krider, & McMahon, 2000; Roark, 1989).
Tertiary prevention is a natural and the most common response to violence,
as it is reactive by nature. Any given college or university has established some kind
of network on campuses comprised of campus “police,” a medical facility, a
counseling center, and a judicial branch. Additionally, because on a college campus
practically anyone (e.g., staff, campus police, faculty, residence hall personnel) can
be the first responder to crime, many colleges have specific procedures or protocols,
and sometimes training, which facilitate such response and further action. An
47
important part of the protocol is the judicial code that both describes a disciplinary
action and also represents a policy that outlines behaviors unacceptable in a college
community. By holding students responsible for their behaviors, helping to sustain a
system of intra-campus records, and being a major deterrent to campus violence,
judicial codes and procedures can be a reliable and effective conduit of campus
policies aimed at reducing violence on campus (Sherill, 1989).
Secondary prevention is comprised of the efforts directed at reducing the
existing problem and risks identified on campus through creating and disseminating
policies regarding violence, specifically violence against women on campus,
conducting research on campus violence, creating campus resource centers, and
establishing a campus task force or committee combating particular aspects of
violence or concerned with campus safety (Fisher, 1995; Roark, 1989). Similar to
many elements of tertiary prevention, secondary prevention measures very often
serve as deterrents of violence. While quite effective and one of the oldest
approaches, the deterrence approach relies heavily on fear of punishment (Potter et
al., 2000), which by itself cannot eliminate victimization, as it only helps to reduce
the existing risks of victimization. Therefore, the more preferred level of prevention
is primary prevention, which targets the problem before it creates exposure to the
risks and criminal behaviors.
Primary prevention’s aim is to stop dangerous situations from happening by
taking action before the onset of the problem and by using the most powerful
prevention tool of all: education (Roark, 1989). Primary prevention can target all the
48
populations involved: past and potential victims, past and potential perpetrators, staff
and other potential first responders, and community members. Primary prevention
education programs include the teaching of various forms of violence against
women, addressing rape- and violence-supportive attitudes, educating participants
about socialization patterns, encouraging faculty to teach aspects of violence against
women, promoting an anti-violence culture on campus, teaching rape-avoidance
skills, and teaching and encouraging individual responses to violence. By using the
public health approach to violence prevention, these measures focus on the benefits
of non-violence and healthy relationships, rather than on the negative fear-based
repercussions (Potter et al., 2000).
Evolution of Prevention Programming on College Campuses
Similar to approaches to solving any other problem, approaches to violence
prevention have evolved over time and, to a large extent, this evolution has depended
on where particular colleges stood developmentally (Kilmartin, 2001a). Bohmer and
Parrot (1993) distinguish eight categories of colleges based on how they manage
their response to sexual assault. These categories range between two extremes:
colleges that hold a system of beliefs blaming the victims for the sexual assaults
perpetrated against them (victim blamers) and colleges focusing on primary
prevention with extreme penalties for an offender found guilty by the campus
judicial systems (victims’ rights advocates). Prevention at colleges positioned at this
latter extreme of the continuum can be problematic, as “victims’ rights advocates”
may build prevention around definitions of sexual assault and consent that are
49
outside the scope of a legal framework and instill in its students unrealistic
expectations towards other people’s behaviors and their college’s response to offense
allegations. “Victim blamers,” in comparison, may not consider sexual violence to be
a problem and thus may deny quality services to victims, discouraging them from
filing charges against perpetrators. To be successful in eliminating sexual assaults on
their campuses, colleges should strive to qualify for the categories of ethical and
concerned, i.e., to be concerned about the quality of life of their students and not to
tolerate sexual assault on their campuses.
According to the National Institute of Justice, which considers prevention
efforts as essential as victim services, “many” U.S. colleges offer some kind of
prevention program (Karjane, Fisher, & Cullen, 2002). For example, 6 in 10 schools
offer safety education programs. Less than one-third of all the educational programs
address acquaintance rape prevention. In public 4-year institutions, approximately
half of the programs address acquaintance rape.
In their attempts to be more effective in combating sexual assault, colleges
continue to develop new types of prevention. As new types or programming emerge,
they do not replace the older types, but rather enrich the existing prevention with the
new insights and strategies. What is known from the violence prevention literature
about prevention programs comes mainly from the few publications on the
effectiveness of individual prevention programs (Anderson & Whiston, 2005;
Breitenbecher, 2000; Lonsway, 1996; Rozee & Koss, 2001; Schewe & O’Donohue,
1993; Sochting et al., 2004; Yeater & O’Donohue, 1999). Despite the lack of
50
published research on this topic, however, it is known that the goals of prevention
programs vary from providing information to reducing victimization rates for
campus students. Key components of these programs include the dissemination of
information regarding prevalence of sexual assaults among college students, rape
myths, sex role socialization, risk-related dating behaviors, and induction of empathy
for rape survivors (Breitenbecher, 2000).
Four main trends can be noted in sexual assault prevention in relation to the
their target populations: (a) programs targeting women; (b) male-only programs; (c)
mixed-gender programs; and (d) programs targeting men as bystanders. The
following sections of this chapter provide a brief overview of the types of prevention
programming that has emerged over the last two decades and how each trend reflects
the values and philosophy of colleges regarding the causes of sexual assault.
Programs targeting women. Programs targeting women can be divided into
two types. The first type represents the earliest efforts to reduce sexual violence by
targeting potential (female) victims and teaching them self-defense and rape-
avoidance strategies. The second type represents a more advanced primary
educational approach to rape prevention, targeting women’s system of rape-related
attitudes and beliefs.
The first type of prevention often combines campus safety improvement or
physical environment interventions (e.g., campus lighting, emergency phones, escort
services) with workshops for female students on rape-avoidance techniques and self-
defense classes. This type of prevention falls into the general category of secondary
51
prevention, as it is largely based on the women’s fear of sexual victimization. Quite
often, campus law enforcement becomes an integral part of such security measures,
victim services, and educational strategies (Fisher, 1995; Sampson, 2002).
Ever since it gained popularity in the early 1980s, this approach has become
one of the most prevalent approaches to sexual violence prevention (Hong, 2000;
Lonsway, 1996; O’Donohue, Yeater, & Fanetti, 2003). It also has been associated
with the most basic and earliest stage in the development of violence prevention on
campus (Kilmartin, 2001a). Paradoxically, despite the frequent claims that women-
only programs are the most prevalent on campus, very few evaluations of such
programs have been published in the research literature (O’Donohue et al., 2003;
Schewe, 2002) and no empirical longitudinal studies of their effectiveness have been
conducted (Ullman, 2002).
While not entirely inadequate, such programs have been increasingly
criticized by feminist researchers for the sole emphasis they place on the victims,
making sexual violence a women’s issue and absolving males of responsibility
(Bohmer & Parrot, 1993; Stanko, 1998). Another important criticism of such
programs lies in the claim that such an approach focuses almost exclusively on
stranger-perpetrated sexual assaults, while neglecting acquaintance rape, which is the
most prevalent crime on college campus (Sampson, 2002; Yeater & O’Donohue,
1999).
Often called a “deterrence” approach rather than real prevention (Lonsway,
1996), women-only programs can be unfairly restrictive in regard to women’s basic
52
rights and freedoms (Schewe & O’Donohue, 1993). This is particularly true when
women are taught to avoid walking alone at night, to avoid certain areas and places,
to carry whistles and pepper sprays, and to dress to attract less attention. Such
strategies convey additional messages about the women’s ability and responsibility
to prevent sexual assaults and potentially stigmatize those women who fail to prevent
such incidents (Harner, 2003).
A certain amount of caution needs to be observed when teaching women rape
resistance strategies as well, as demonstrated in Zoucha-Jensen and Coyne’s (1998)
study. According to Zoucha-Jensen and Coyne, no resistance and non-forceful
resistance correlate with completed rape attempts the most, as opposed to physical
resistance and fleeing, which show the most negative association. All resistance
strategies, however, demonstrate a strong association with the completed rape,
regardless of the type. Similar findings were demonstrated in earlier research (Bart &
O’Brien, 1984). In keeping with this, Schewe and O’Donohue (1993) concluded that
such strategies and tactics can never be completely successful, as it is impossible to
stay “constantly and perfectly vigilant” (p. 667).
In general, resistance strategies are considered to be fairly effective, however,
in avoidance of rape and physical injury (Ullman, 1997). The modern appeal of such
strategies is claimed to be in the focus on women’s agency and empowerment, rather
than on victimization (McCaughey, 1997; 1998; Rozee & Koss, 2001). As
researchers turn to resistance strategies as a promising venue in sexual violence
incidence reduction, an increase in such programs on campus can be expected.
53
Despite multiple criticisms, some researchers still believe that rape
prevention would be most effective with the inclusion of such programs into more
comprehensive prevention approaches (Bohmer & Parrot, 1993; Hanson & Gidycz,
1993; O’Donohue et al., 2003; Sampson, 2002; Sochting et al., 2004). In this regard,
primary prevention programs targeting women’s rape-related cognitions and
attitudes are considered even more effective. A model prevention program that was
effectively conducted and evaluated is the Sexual Assault Prevention Program
(Hanson & Gidycz, 1993). The program resulted in an increase in knowledge about
sexual assault and decreases in risky dating behaviors, as well as the incidence of
sexual assault (for women without a sexual assault history). The decrease in the
incidence of sexual assaults was found to be over 50% of the incidence in the control
condition. Being one of the few rape education programs for women that have been
published, it has been praised for its more thorough methodological design, in
general, and the examination of the pre-test and post-test incidence rates, in
particular (Lonsway, 1996; Yeater & O’Donohue, 1999).
Because rape prevention programs are rarely evaluated and the few
evaluations are rarely published (Breitenbecher, 2000) it is difficult to draw
conclusions as to the effectiveness of all-female programs or any one approach in
particular. Rape prevention programs that target exclusively women also appear to
be the most controversial due to the two opposite stances that researchers and
administrators likewise often take in regard to this kind of programming.
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The role of women in prevention programming is currently undergoing a new
validation and revival. In addition, targeting a single-gender audience, as opposed to
mixed-gender programs, has been advocated in the literature (Kilmartin, 2001b;
Schewe, 2002; Schewe & O’Donohue, 1993) and can serve as another argument for
women’s prevention advocates.
Co-education programs. Rather than deterring potential and actual
perpetrators from committing an individual violent act, true prevention approaches
would address the causes of sexual violence by, at minimum, including the potential
and actual perpetrators, men, into their audience (Lonsway, 1996). Bringing men into
rape prevention as an approach became a more or less typical strategy in the mid
1980s as a result of the feminist movement that had become relatively strong by that
time (Rozee & Koss, 2001). Program evaluation reviews showed that mixed
audience or co-education programs quickly became the majority of all evaluated
prevention programs (Breitenbecher, 2000; Gidycz et al., 2001; Lonsway, 1996;
Schewe, 2002; Schewe & O’Donohue, 1993).
Such programs normally have a wide array of topics and include such
components as gender role socialization, information about rape and sexual violence,
rape-supportive attitudes and rape myths, peer pressure, rape trauma syndrome,
available services, and legal issues (Lonsway, 1996; Schewe, 2002). The
overwhelming majority of mixed-audience programs shows a positive change for at
least one of the outcome variables, which is also the case for all-male and all-female
audiences (Breitenbecher, 2000). The effectiveness of co-education programs,
55
however, has been questioned by some researchers (Berkowitz, 2002; Berkowitz et
al., 1994; Lonsway, 1996), as single-sex programs show more positive outcomes. In
fact, the ratio of successes to null results or negative outcomes (10:1) was found to
be the best for the single-sex programs targeting men (Breitenbecher, 2000).
Lonsway (1996) noted the following limitations regarding the potential
effectiveness of co-education programs: heavy reliance on immediate attitudinal
changes and the absence of longitudinal evaluations of program effects (as is seen
with all-female programs), inclusion of “consumer satisfaction” into the assessment,
and inappropriateness of some of the outcomes (e.g., men’s failing to place
responsibility for rape on their gender).
Schewe and O’Donohue (1993) have argued that co-education programs may
not only be ineffective, but even dangerous, as men and women need to know
different information concerning sexual violence. There is not enough evidence,
however, as to whether prevention education differentially affects men and women,
and making any conclusions regarding the role of participant gender may be
premature (Breitenbecher, 2000).
Overall, the results of evaluation studies of co-education programs show
mixed results (Breitenbecher, 2000). There are clear advantages and disadvantages to
the mixed-gender type of programming that include, on the one hand, an opportunity
to interact and learn what both men and women think about the issues (Avery-Leaf
& Cascardi, 2002) and, on the other hand, backlash and defensiveness on the part of
men (Berkowitz et al., 1994)
56
Programs targeting men as perpetrators. Programs targeting men were
widely introduced in the 1990s, when researchers and administrators/educators
began noticing problems with risk-reduction and rape-avoidance programs as well as
mixed-gender programs. In recent years, male-only programs have become
increasingly popular on college campuses (Schewe, 2002), with a cohort of
researchers advocating exclusively for this kind of programming (Berkowitz, 1994;
Berkowitz, 2002; Hong, 2000; Schewe, 2002; Schewe & O’Donohue, 1993, 1996),
as well as those who see a particular interest in the potential of men’s programming
(Lonsway, 1996; O’Donohue et al., 2003; Rozee & Koss, 2001).
The reasons for using male-only programs are many (Berkowitz, 1994), but
the most common reasons for using male-only programs are: (a) they are an attempt
to make violence against women a men’s issue, as opposed to its being a women’s
issue; (b) men feel more comfortable and less defensive when they are around their
male peers; and (c) men and women need to know different types of information
about violence against women. For example, women learn about rapist profiles, risk-
reduction and rape-avoidance strategies, factors that put them at risk of victimization,
while men need to learn about the negative sides of hypermasculinity, victim
empathy, and negative peer norms and influences. Unlike coeducation programs,
male-only programs are supposed to also provide a safe environment for men, in
which men can openly discuss the issues of their male identity and proclivity to rape
and violence (Berkowitz et al., 1994). When male programs are led by peers, they
57
have the potential to challenge peer norms through encouraging peers to speak out
against sexual violence.
The results of evaluations of male-only programs are mixed (Rozee & Koss,
2001). On the one hand, they have cumulatively demonstrated the best outcome
results of all types of programs (Breitenbecher, 2000). On the other hand, as is the
case with all-female and co-education programs, the success (mostly attitude change)
was measured immediately after the end of the program (Lonsway, 1996). Given
these mixed results, Rozee and Koss (2001) support a selective approach to targeting
male audiences that is based on cognitive, emotional, and behavioral risk factors
such as power motivation, masculine ideology, hostility toward women, preference
for impersonal sex and dominance, adversarial sex beliefs, and personal
responsibility. Areas that have only limited scientific support such as men’s empathy
for sexual violence victims should be considered with more caution until more
consistent research findings become available.
It is also important to remember that focusing exclusively on males may
create certain problems, as most colleges do not require participation in violence
prevention. Most participants may be low risk and women may never come into
contact with those men who have participated in prevention programs (O’Donohue et
al., 2003). Nevertheless, all-male programs are seen as most promising in sexual
violence prevention and, as an area of special interest, will continue to be used and
tested in the future programs (Lonsway, 1996).
58
Programs targeting men as bystanders. As all male programs continue to
become more popular on college campuses, new caveats for male programming have
started to emerge. In addition to the fact that most male participants in prevention
programming on college campuses may not be potential perpetrators, it has become
clear that, to change a rape-prone society, a more comprehensive approach than one
that tackles only the dichotomy of victim/perpetrator is needed (Sanday, 1996;
Banyard, Plante, & Moynihan, 2004). Prevention programs may not be effective, as
most men are not capable of perpetrating sexual violence and those who are at risk
are too comfortable within their in-groups to change their norms.
Thus, further developments were needed in the area of sexual violence
prevention (Banyard et al., 2004). One such development is the bystander approach.
As identified by Schewe (2002), the bystander approach is a “powerful tool” in
influencing student perceptions of sexual violence and its negative consequences.
Based on an assumption that peers have credibility that no professional educator can
ever have (Kilmartin, 2001a), students teach other students how to intervene to
prevent sexual violence, assist victims of violence, and perceive rape as a risky
behavior (Berkowitz, as cited in Schewe, 2002).
Unfortunately, there are no evaluations of such programs, with the exception
of the Rape Prevention Program for men developed by Berkowitz (2002). This
program was one of the first programs to target bystander behavior through sharing
and acting on men’s discomfort associated with past sexually coercive behavior, as
well as through discussing issues of masculinity, consent, fear of false accusations,
59
and empathy for victims. The program was evaluated several times and demonstrated
positive changes in rape-myth acceptance, attitudes towards women, and
understanding of consent and coercion, when compared to control groups.
Another widely known, and anecdotally successful, bystander program
developed by Katz, Mentors in Violence Prevention, has never been evaluated in
published research, but reportedly has resulted in positive attitudinal changes
(Banyard et al., 2004). To compensate for the lack of published evaluations of
similar programs, Banyard et al. (2004) reviewed research on helping behavior and
bystanders in areas other than sexual violence, including interpersonal violence.
They found that bystander intervention behavior is possible in the area of violence,
under certain conditions: (a) the bystander needs to be aware of the problem and its
negative effect on the victim; (b) the bystander is most likely to help when he or she
is asked to help; (c) the bystander should not view the victim as a source or cause of
his or her own problems; and (d) the bystander needs to possess the skills to
intervene and possibly have viewed someone who modeled such a behavior.
Conclusions
Colleges today have a wide array of response strategies and mechanisms to
respond to violence, through making campus physical environments safer,
responding to crimes after they have taken place, adjudicating cases of violence,
collecting data about crimes and raising awareness among the academic community,
creating and disseminating anti-violence policies, and educational and safety
programs. These strategies and mechanisms can be understood as being on three
60
different levels: tertiary prevention, secondary prevention, and primary prevention.
Primary prevention, which is the most preferred (Roark, 1989), but the least utilized
on college campuses (Potter et al., 2000), reflects a public health approach by
targeting the problem before its onset and by attempting to eliminate its causes
through education, improving social cognitive skills, and targeting specific
populations that can potentially change the culture of rape that exists in college
communities.
There is some evidence that colleges, by utilizing primarily tertiary
prevention, and sometimes secondary prevention, are not using a more
comprehensive approach to violence prevention that is needed for them to be
successful in this area (Hong, 2000; Potter et al., 2000). Very few, if any, prevention
programs are based on any particular rape or sexual violence theory. According to
Yeater and O’Donohue (1999), “it often appears as if information is included in
sexual assault prevention programs because it ‘makes sense’” (p. 751). The most
common rationale for designing specific prevention programs is the focus on the
participant gender, with the assumption that the focus is on males as perpetrators,
females as victims, and both genders as perpetrators and victims. The reported mixed
changes in attitudes, and sometimes even backlash effects, may be a sign of the
weakness of such an approach and may even suggest that gender-neutral material
may be more appropriate than is the perpetrator/victim paradigm (Avery-Leaf &
Cascardi, 2002).
61
While there is no single established cause of violence against women, no
unanimity as far as the definitions of violence are concerned, and no single most
effective prevention approach, we possess enough knowledge to make informed
decisions on how to respond to violence against women. Some of the known
variables include: (a) the importance of cognitions and socio-cultural factors in
violence perpetration and a number of strategies for prevention that cognitive and
socio-cultural theories offer; (b) the role of the reportedly most significant risk
factors (e.g., hyper-masculinity, rape supportive beliefs) and of the risk populations
(e.g., young men of college age with the understanding that predispositions to
violence are being formed much earlier in life) that need to be targeted by violence
prevention programs; and (c) the understanding of barriers to successful prevention
currently existing on college campuses and certain types of prevention programs and
strategies that have been tested out in the past decade and proved successful.
The discussed risk factors for rape also include mainly cognitive factors such
as attitudes and beliefs about sex, sexual scripts, beliefs about masculinity, male peer
support, alcohol consumption, and the sense of entitlement to rape. Some of these
factors, including alcohol consumption, hypermasculinity, peer pressure to rape, and
rape myths, have been particularly important in contributing to violence against
women and, therefore, need to be taken into consideration when designing
prevention programs. Rape-supportive attitudes and beliefs are especially relevant to
the field of prevention because they not only influence men’s decision to rape, but
also by their nature, they influence the decisions of administrators and other
62
personnel involved in institutions’ response to violence. These beliefs and attitudes
may be a serious obstacle to an adequate response to violence against women, as
administrators and policy-makers may not realize the seriousness of the problem or
may not believe that violence against women can be prevented by mobilizing college
community’s forces.
By considering the violence prevention programs that college administrators
have seen implemented and been a part of and what they perceive as most effective,
as well as by comparing these perceptions to what we know from the research about
violence against women, it may be possible to draw some important conclusions
about how serious they perceive the problem to be and whether their perceptions of
violence prevention coincide with research findings, which has important
implications for practice and research. If this study confirms previous research
findings that colleges do not advocate and utilize a comprehensive approach to
violence prevention (which, according to literature, may be the main reason they are
failing to reduce crime and violence on their campuses), it will contribute to
identifying the gap between prevention practices and research on the effectiveness of
these practices.
63
CHAPTER 3
METHODOLOGY
The purpose of this study was to determine which programs are considered
by student affairs administrators as most effective in preventing violence and sexual
aggression against women. To this end, this research is a non-experimental,
quantitative, descriptive-analytic study of one of the largest samples of student
affairs administrators that has been used to date. Specifically, this study was guided
by the following research questions:
1. What sexual violence prevention programs do student affairs professionals
perceive as most effective?
2. Is there any pattern in student affairs professionals’ perceptions of violence
prevention programs based on their gender, years in the field, professional level, unit
they work in, size and type of the institution, and perceptions of violence as a
problem?
This study was one of the three studies conducted via a national web-based
survey concerning the Clery Act legislation. The focus of this study was student
affairs professionals’ perceptions in regard to sexual violence prevention as a Clery
Act requirement. The other two researchers, Colaner (2006) and Soden (2006),
explored the knowledge and training of student affairs administrators at both 2-year
and 4-year institutions with regard to this legislation.
A specific section of the survey, developed in collaboration with the two
other student co-investigators, was used to target this study’s research questions. The
64
remainder of the survey contained questions concerning the knowledge and
professional preparation of student affairs professionals in regard to the Clery Act
legislation and the demographics of the participants, as well as one open-ended
question regarding college campus safety. Specifically, the following questions were
used to answer the above research questions and represented the dependent variables:
8, 37, 40-42, and 48. Additionally, questions 2-7 and 52 were used, as they provided
independent variables in the form of participants’ demographics and institutional
characteristics.
The main hypothesis of this study was that there is a discrepancy or gap
between what prevention programming college practitioners believe is effective and
implement on college campuses and what current research on campus violence and
its prevention recommends. If this hypothesis is not supported, and there is no such
gap between theory and practice, it may be concluded that the source of the problem
needs to be sought in a different area, such as organizational barriers, insufficient
knowledge or underestimation of the problem, or misunderstanding of the Clery Act
legislation and its requirements.
This chapter further includes the study’s methodology, including the research
population and sample, research design, instrumentation, and data analysis. The
chapter ends with an explanation of the limitations of the study, ethical
considerations, and a summary.
65
Methods
Population and Sample
The population for this study is student affairs professionals currently
employed at higher education institutions nationwide. The sample was drawn from
three major professional associations: NASPA, ACPA, and AACC. The three
associations can be understood as professional advocacy networking organizations
with the aim of enhancing and improving higher education institutions’ services to
students.
Despite the many similarities between the associations, certain differences
should be noted. ACPA has more entry-level professionals and pre-entry-level
graduate students enrolled in student affairs/higher education programs. It focuses on
outreach, advocacy, and professional development of its members. NASPA includes
approximately 3,000 senior-level student affairs administrators and focuses on
administration, policy, and practice issues facing higher education. AACC’s main
focus is community college type 2-year institutions.
There are several reasons for drawing the sample from these three
associations. All three associations are the largest and most representative of the
overall population of the student affairs professionals in the country in that they are
open to all student affairs professionals, faculty, and staff members at member and
non-member institutions. As a result, ACPA and NASPA have at least 8,000
members each and AACC has 1,084 members. ACPA represents “nearly 1,500
private and public institutions from across the U.S. and internationally” (American
66
College Personnel Association, n.d.). NASPA similarly represents a wide array of
private and public 2-year and 4-year institutions, domestically and internationally.
Both are considered the leading associations in the student affairs profession. AACC
is the “leading proponent” and a national forum (American Association of
Community Colleges, n.d.), created to exclusively serve needs of community
colleges. It represents approximately 95% of all community and other 2-year
colleges.
Another reason for choosing these organizations is that, assuming that the
associations’ members for the most part share the values of these organizations, such
as commitment to students and higher education, service, learning, integrity, equal
educational opportunities and diversity in learning, the participants will most likely
represent a population of professionals that is concerned with the issues discussed,
have a certain experience or willingness to be involved in resolving issues of campus
safety, and likely have a diversity of perceptions due to the diverse nature of the
three associations. Therefore, the sample may comprise a sub-population (within a
larger population of student affairs professionals) of professionals dedicated and
actively involved in their field.
The entire member population of the three professional associations was used
as a sample. This resulted in a substantially large sample that is highly representative
of the student professionals in general (McMillan & Schumacher, 1993). Because the
associations’ membership is open to 2- and 4-year colleges and it is possible to be a
member of all three or any two associations at the same time, the necessary
67
crosschecks were performed and the names that appeared in the membership lists
more than once were eliminated to guarantee only one entry per name.
To invite the participants to be part of the study and complete the survey, the
email addresses of the associations’ members were collected (the student
investigators for this study were also members of these associations and could access
the other members’ contact information via the Internet) and entered into an Excel
spreadsheet. After all the crosschecks had been performed, an electronic letter of
invitation (Appendix A) was sent to each potential participant that included a link to
the SurveyMonkey.com website, where the survey was posted.
The research team expected to obtain about 16,000 email addresses as
reflected in the combined membership list. After eliminating the duplicate records
(of membership) and undeliverable addresses, however, the sample population
resulted in the total of 12,390 people. Similar previous studies (Gregory & Janosik,
2003; Janosik, 2001; Janosik & Gehring, 2003; Janosik & Gregory, 2003) produced
response rates between 30% and 50%. Studies using similar approaches targeted
stratified, randomized and, in most cases, smaller samples. This study targeted a very
large and geographically scattered sample of student affairs professionals that in and
of itself is a broad population. It was expected that the study would yield a response
rate of at least 1,200 participants.
The invitations to participate in the survey were sent out on November 7,
2005. The participants were informed that they would have 4 weeks to access and
68
complete the survey at a time convenient to them. Upon the termination of 4 weeks
(December 5, 2005), the survey was locked and no additional entries were permitted.
Instrumentation
This research is a non-experimental, quantitative, descriptive-analytic study
that used a 53-item survey (Appendix B) that was posted for access on
Surveymonkey.com website to examine the relationship between variables. An
electronic survey was selected as the data-gathering tool due to economy of design,
rapid turnaround in data, and convenience for those involved in the study.
The survey consisted of the total 53 questions that were assigned to 8
different content sections: (a) demographic information (including personal,
professional, and institutional characteristics); (b) perceptions of campus violence;
(c) Clery awareness; (d) Clery knowledge; (e) formal training; (f) campus disclosure
of violence; (g) impact of alcohol in sexual assault; (h) violence prevention
programming; and (i) personal beliefs about rape and sexual assault on campus.
Demographic questions consisted of three subcategories relating to the respondents’
personal, professional, and institutional characteristics, serving as independent
variables.
The survey combined questions that were drawn from similar studies on the
Clery Act, with the permission of their authors (Janosik, 2001; Janosik & Gehring,
2003; Janosik & Gregory, 2003), and the questions that were created by the team as a
result of literature reviews and participation in training programs on the Clery Act
(IACLEA/NACUBO online training program). The questions pertaining to the
69
outreach programs were created based on the literature review and, while not directly
adapted from the previous studies, were structured to be similar to many of the
questions used in Clery Act research in the past. The attitude questions about alcohol
and violence against women were created by analogy to the widely known rape and
sexual violence myths (these questions, however, were not analyzed in this study).
In addition to drawing types of questions from previous research as a means
to ensure content validity, the survey, including the questions that had been
borrowed from previous studies, was also pilot tested on a group of 20 student affairs
professionals from different institutions. A few minor changes suggested by these
professionals were incorporated into the final version of the survey.
The reliability of the instrument was reinforced by the use of a standard
survey, heterogeneous character of the group, the relatively high number of
questions, and the large ranges of response options in the checklist items. According
to McMillan and Schumacher (1993), completion time exceeding an hour may
reduce the reliability. Therefore, the reliability of the instrument was also enhanced
by the fact that that the subjects could complete the survey in relatively similar
standard conditions and within a relatively short period of time (approximately 20-25
minutes).
Data Collection
Initially, the research team planned to purchase the contact information from
each of the three associations. However, because that information provides mailing
labels only, it was decided to obtain members’ email addresses instead. The
70
electronic format of the invitation to participate was more likely to ensure a better
response rate, not only because email is a significant source of communication, but
also due to the fact that written communication is reported to be the least preferred
method of communication among university administrators (Forde, Dill, Forde, &
Hare, 2002).
With the help of two paid assistants, the research team looked up the email
addresses of all of the associations’ members and created a list of participants.
Members who were identified as “emeritus,” “faculty,” or non-profit subscriber”
were eliminated. Then the list was checked for duplicates in cases in which
individuals were members of more than one association. The duplicate records were
then deleted. The process resulted in 14,379 participants.
The letter of invitation and brief instructions on how to access the survey
were sent out by email to all of the participants on November 7, 2005. In addition,
the letter informed the participants that the completion of the survey would take no
longer than 20 minutes and that they could abandon the survey at any time without
any consequences. More detailed information was included into the Informed
Consent form (Appendix C) preceding the online survey. The Informed Consent
form included the information on procedures, confidentiality, risks and benefits, and
the University of Southern California Institutional Review Board office contact
information. Before proceeding to complete the survey, the participants were asked
to hit the “I agree to all terms and conditions” button.
71
The participants were asked to complete the survey no later than four weeks
after the receipt of the letter. No reminder cards were sent after the November 7 date,
per special request of the associations’ administrators. After the 4-week period, the
survey was locked and became inaccessible to any more entries. Within the first few
days of sending out the letter of invitation, approximately 2,000 emails were returned
as undeliverable. The researchers also received a number of addresses from
individuals who were retired, worked primarily as faculty members, or no longer
worked in student affairs. Those participants were eliminated from the general list
and the final number of potential participants dropped to 12,390.
As was promised in the Informed Consent form, approved by the University
of Southern California Institutional Review Board for Research on Human Subjects,
no personal identifiers of the participants or their institutions were collected or
entered in the final research dataset. After the completion of the data collection, the
initial dataset with the participants’ email addresses was deleted. The survey data
were saved and stored on the researchers’ password-protected computers. Therefore,
the survey’s confidentiality was strictly maintained.
Data Analysis
This study used both descriptive and inferential statistics to investigate the
existence and extent of the relationships between selected variables. During the data
collection stage, the survey responses were checked on a daily basis and preliminary
descriptive statistics were used to check for any response bias in the study (Creswell,
2003). A full descriptive analysis of the study, with response frequencies, was
72
conducted for all of the dependent and independent variables in the part of the survey
pertaining to this study. Because this study was a part of a bigger project, these
variables were primarily targeted in questions 2-7, 37, 40-42, 48, and 52. Chi-square
analyses were also conducted to determine whether there were significant differences
between groups of participants, based on gender, years in the field, professional
level, unit they work in, size and type of the institution, and perceptions of violence
as a problem.
Limitations
Despite this study’s relatively large scale and its potential importance, there
were several limitations. Due to the professional association membership
requirement used for each participant, the sample in this research may be considered
biased. Nevertheless, for the particular purposes of the study, this bias may be
desirable. The professionals that are presumably most committed to and involved in
the field of student affairs are most likely also to be more interested in and
responsible for the violence prevention programming on college campuses than are
non-members or those who chose not to respond. In that sense, they form a
population of their own, whose opinions best meet the goals of this research.
Another major limitation of this study is that it did not generate a response
rate as high as other similar studies on campus safety and the Clery Act have
generated in the past. There may be several reasons for this, including the nationwide
nature of the study, as opposed to the studies that used a single or a limited number
of institutions; the use of electronic letters of invitation that may have been perceived
73
by many as “spam” mail and possibly ignored without reading; the fact that the team
decided not to send a reminder to participate; and that this study was conducted by a
team of doctoral candidates, as opposed to the similar studies conducted by major
researchers in the field.
Other limitations are based on the online and anonymous nature of the
survey. Because there was no way to make sure that each participant responded
independently, only once, or that he or she was the selected participant, there is
always a risk that these conditions were not observed.
Ethical Considerations
Prior to the data collection, this study was approved by the University of
Southern California Institutional Review Board for Research on Human Subjects.
None of the questions used in the study presented any risks to the participants’
psychological well being. Nor did they present any liability risks for responders and
their respective institutions due to the nature of the questions aimed at personal
perceptions, rather than at factual information. The study guaranteed complete
confidentiality to the participants and their institutions by avoiding a request for any
identifying information or connecting the responses to the selected participants. The
participants’ contact information was deleted immediately after the data collection
was completed. The participants were instructed that their participation was
voluntary and that they could stop responding to the survey at any point without any
consequences.
74
Summary
This chapter described the methodological design of the study, including the
population and the sample, the instrument and how the data collection and analysis
were conducted, the possible limitations, and ethical considerations. The following
chapter will present the research findings.
75
CHAPTER 4
RESULTS
The purpose of this study was to determine which violence prevention
programming student affairs professionals consider to be most effective as well as
how the patterns in the professionals’ perceptions differ based on their gender,
experience in the field, the type of the institution, and unit in which they work. This
chapter presents the results of the analyses of the data. Participants’ individual
characteristics are reported in the first section of this chapter, including gender, years
in the field, size of institution, type of institution, unit in which they work, and
administrative level. Following the demographic section, the results in regard to the
participants experience with prevention programming on their campus is presented.
Further, the data on two items directly answering the main research questions are
reported in the same section. Then, the relationships between key variable are
identified and a summary of the chapter is presented.
Participant Characteristics
After the invitation to participate in the web-based survey was emailed to
participants, they had a total of four weeks to complete the survey. At the completion
of that period, the survey was blocked, and the total of 1,803 responses were
collected and imported from SurveyMonkey into an Excel database.
Out of 1,803 responses, 279 responses were incomplete (respondents had
agreed to participate, but did not complete any of the survey) and were immediately
deleted from the database. Another 29 responses were filled out by participants who
76
identified themselves as faculty, students, or other positions unrelated to the field of
student affairs. These responses also were eliminated, as the respondents not engaged
professionally in the field of student affairs were not the subjects of this
investigation. As a result of these deletions, a total number of 1,495 responses were
used for analyses, which yielded a response rate of 12.1%. While this response rate is
not as high as it was initially expected, it was deemed large enough by the
investigation group for the purposes of this study.
Treatment of the Data
Because the survey was designed by a group of three student investigators to
serve the purposes of three doctoral studies, questions not pertaining to this study
and analyzed by the other two researchers were not used in this study. As a result,
only data from questions 2-8, 37, 40-42, 48, and 52 were used for the present
analyses. Questions 2-7 and 52 asked for respondents’ demographic data and,
therefore, these data generated the overall characteristics of the participants.
Questions 40 and 41 asked about participants’ experience with prevention
programming and questions 8, 37, and 42, and 48 asked the participants to express
their opinion on a particular aspect of sexual violence and prevention programming.
The remaining questions did not directly pertain to the research questions and will be
used in future research.
After generating the frequencies, certain changes were made to how the data
were grouped in five questions to facilitate further analyses. Question 2 asked the
participants to estimate the length of their work in the student affairs profession and
77
place themselves into one of the five categories suggested. Because the last category
(“more than 30 years”) generated a relatively low number of responses, it was added
to the category of “21-30 years” and, therefore, a new category was formed: “more
than 20 years.”
Similar changes were made to the data in Questions 4 and 8. The data in
Question 4 pertaining to 2-year colleges were combined from three categories (2-
year public, 2-year private non-profit, and 2-year private for-profit) into one because
2-year private colleges (non- and for-profit) accounted for barely 1% of responses.
The data for 4-year private (non-profit and for-profit) were combined into one
category of 4-year private, as 4-year private for-profit category accounted for a very
small number of responses.
In Question 8, the data for participants who believe that violence is a large
problem and a very large problem were combined because the latter category
represented less than 1% of the sample, while the former category comprised only
4.2% of all responses to the question.
Question 5 consisted of five categories that related to two variables:
geographic location (urban vs. non-urban and rural) and the existence versus absence
of residence life. Participants were instructed to check all that applied. The question
was divided and these two variables were analyzed separately.
Finally, Question 6 asked respondents to identify the unit in which they
worked. Reviewing the responses, it became clear that some participants checked
more than one category, despite the instructions to select only one. Moreover, the
78
category labeled “other (please specify)” contained 166 responses. To analyze all of
the responses and resolve the problem of multiple selections, the categories were
collapsed into a total of 8 broader categories (Appendix D). This grouping and the
collapsing of the categories were performed at the researcher’s request by four USC
student affairs professionals who served as independent consultants.
Participant Demographics
Of the 1,495 responses, the majority of the participants (84.3%) had worked
in student affairs fewer than 20 years. The largest group of all (42.2%) consisted of
professionals who had only 5 years or fewer of experience in the field. Those with
the most experience (who worked over 20 years) comprised only 15.7% (Table 1).
Table 1
Years in Profession
Years in Profession n Percentage
5 years or fewer 631 42.2%
6-10 years 331 22.1%
11-20 years 299 20.0%
More than 20 years 234 15.7%
Total 1,196 100.0%
The distribution of respondents’ length of time in the profession is also
reflected in the administrative levels they officially held within their profession.
Table 2 displays the wide range of administrative levels and their representation at
each level of work experience. The majority of entry-level positions (97.1%) were
79
held by professionals who have worked in the field fewer than 11 years. The
majority of the senior-level positions (86.4%) were held by those who have worked
11 years or more. This distribution seems logical given that work experience is one
of the decisive factors influencing the professional growth of practitioners in the
field of student affairs.
Table 2
Administrative Level
Administrative
Level
5 Years
and Fewer
6 Years
and Fewer
11-20 years
21+ years
Total
Entry-Level
438
(89.9%)
35
(7.2%)
9
(1.8%)
5
(1.0%)
487
(100%)
Mid-Level
145
(31.4%)
188
(40.7%)
107
(23.2%)
22
(4.8%)
462
(100%)
Senior Admin-
istrative-Level
39
(10.6%)
90
(24.5%)
131
(35.6%)
108
(29.3%)
368
(100%)
Senior Student
Affairs Officer
7
(4.1%)
16
(9.5%)
50
(29.6%)
96
(56.8%)
169
(100%)
Total
629
(42.3%)
329
(22.1%)
297
(20.0%)
231
(15.5%)
1,486
(100%)
The respondents were predominantly (89.3%) employed at 4-year
institutions. The largest number of respondents (799, 53.6%) were from 4-year
public institutions. Out of the 10.7% employed at 2-year institutions, the majority
(88.8%) represented public institutions as well. Table 3 presents the breakdown of
the respondents by the type of the institution.
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Table 3
Type of Institution
Type of Institution n Percentage
2-year public 142 9.5%
2-year private (non-profit) 14 0.9%
2-year private (for profit) 4 0.3%
4-year public 799 53.6%
4-year private (non-profit) 492 33.0%
4-year private (for profit) 40 2.7%
Total 1,491 100.0%
The largest group of respondents (42.3%) characterized their institution as
urban, 30.6% as suburban, and the remaining 27% as rural. The majority of the
institutions were residential (75.7%) versus commuter colleges (24.3%).
It is not surprising, therefore, that the largest group of the respondents (26%)
worked in Residence Life, a very important job unit at residential colleges. The
second largest group of respondents (11.1%) represented the Dean of Students
Office, followed by Student Activities (7.7%) and Advising (5.8%). Table 4 shows
the representation of work units among the respondents.
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Table 4
Job Function
Job Unit n Percentage
Residence Life and Housing 457 26.0%
Dean of Students Office 195 11.1%
Student Activities 136 7.7%
Advising 102 5.8%
Career Development 82 4.7%
Orientation and New Student Programs 68 3.9%
Leadership Programs 51 2.9%
Greek Affairs 43 2.4%
Counseling or Psychological Services 41 2.3%
Judicial Affairs 36 2.0%
Multicultural Student Services 35 2.0%
Disability Support Services 34 1.9%
Campus Safety 31 1.8%
College of Student Unions 31 1.8%
Financial Aid 31 1.8%
Admissions 26 1.5%
Assessment 30 1.7%
Community Service/Service Learning 26 1.5%
Women’s Centers 21 1.2%
Graduate and Professional Student Services 20 1.1%
International Student Services 20 1.1%
Health Services 17 1.0%
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT)
Student Services
13
0.7%
Recreation and Fitness Programs 11 0.6%
Enrollment Management 10 0.6%
Commuter Services or Off-Campus Housing 9 0.5%
Athletics 7 0.4%
Registration Services 5 0.3%
Fundraising or Fund Development 2 0.1%
Religious Programs and Services 1 0.1%
Other 166 9.4%
Total 1,757 100.0%
82
The large representation of the Dean of Students Office is also self-
explanatory, as most 4-year and 2-year institutions have an equivalent of Dean of
Students, while most professionals at that level are members of student affairs
professional associations. The smallest groups were Religious Life (0.1%),
Fundraising/Fund Development (0.1%), Registration (0.3), Athletics (0.4%), and
Commuter Services/Off-Campus Housing (0.5%). Of the respondents, 166 (9.4%)
did not find any of the proposed categories to best describe the unit in which they
worked and, instead, filled out the open-ended section.
Female respondents significantly outnumbered male respondents (62.7% vs.
37.1%). This larger proportion of female participants reflects the gender breakdown
in the field and in the professional organizations’ memberships (Holmes, Verrier, &
Chisholm, 1983; Reason, Walker, & Robinson, 2002). Of the participants, 0.2%
identified themselves as transgendered, and 19 participants did not respond to this
question.
Research Questions
Findings Related to Research Question 1
The main purpose of this study, as reflected in Research Question 1 was to
determine which sexual violence prevention programming student affairs
professionals consider most effective. Prior to selecting the most effective prevention
programs, participants were asked to estimate the severity of the problem of violence
on their campus (Question 8) and the overall effectiveness of their institution in
combating the problem of sexual violence (Question 37), as well as provide some
83
background information in regard to what they have seen implemented on campus
(Question 40) and assess the level of their involvement in particular prevention
programs on their campus (Question 41).
As to the effectiveness of specific prevention programs, the survey contained
two questions directly related to this research question: Questions 42 and 48.
Question 42 asked participants to choose from a particular set of programs used on
campus campuses. Question 48 asked participants to choose from a set of approaches
used in sexual violence prevention. Both questions encouraged multiple selections.
Participants’ perceptions of sexual violence as a problem. The first question
that concerned participants’ perceptions of the problem of violence was Question 8.
As seen in Table 5, the majority of participants (67.3%) did not regard violence on
campus as a serious problem. Specifically, 28.1% considered violence to be a
medium problem and only 4.7% of student affairs professionals expressed serious
concern. Three participants skipped the question. It is worth noting that the question
concerned violence on campus, in general, as opposed to the more specific type of
sexual violence or violence against women.
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Table 5
Perceptions of Violence as a Problem
Perceptions of Violence n Percentage
Very small problem or not at all 310 20.8%
Small problem 694 46.5%
Medium problem 419 28.1%
Large problem 62 4.2%
Very large problem 7 0.5%
Total 1,492 100.0%
Institutions’ effectiveness in violence prevention. The data on participants’
perceptions of their institution’s effectiveness in sexual violence prevention
(Question 37) were in keeping with their perceptions of violence in general. Only a
very small percentage of respondents (6.4%) was dissatisfied with their institution’s
efforts in violence prevention. Specifically, 49.9% of the respondents reported that
their institution was somewhat effective and 42.4% considered their employer
institution to be quite or very effective. Of the participants, 20 (1.3%) were unable to
respond to this question, which most likely indicates their lack of knowledge of what
is happening on their campus in terms of violence prevention.
As seen in Table 6, of the participants, the 81.9% who believe that their
institution is very effective also believe that violence on campus is a very small or
small problem, while the 73.9% who believe that their institution is quite effective
and the 60% who believe that their institution is somewhat or not effective feel that
85
violence on campus is a very small or small problem, with X
2
(9, N = 1,474) = 84.94,
p < .001. In other words, the more that participants believe that their institution is
effective, the less serious they perceive the problem of campus violence to be.
Table 6
Relationship between an Institution’s Effectiveness and Violence as a Problem
Perceptions of Violence
as a Problem (Q8)/
Perceptions of
Institution’s
Effectiveness (Q37)
Very
Small
Problem
or Not At
All
Small
Problem
Medium
Problem
Large/
Very
Large
Problem
Total
Not effective
% within Q37
% within Q8
18
19.1%
5.9%
39
41.5%
5.7%
29
30.9%
7.0%
8
8.5%
11.6%
94
100%
6.4%
Somewhat effective
% within Q37
% within Q8
112
15.0%
36.7%
339
45.4%
49.6%
254
34.0%
61.1%
41
5.5%
59.4%
746
100%
50.6%
Quite effective
% within Q37
% within Q8
107
22.6%
35.1%
243
51.3%
35.5%
109
23.0%
26.2%
15
3.2%
21.7%
474
100%
32.2%
Very effective
% within Q37
% within Q8
68
42.5%
22.3%
63
39.4%
9.2%
24
15.0%
5.8%
5
3.1%
7.2%
160
100%
10.9%
Total
% within Q37
% within Q8
305
20.7%
100%
684
46.4%
100%
416
28.2%
100%
69
4.7%
100%
1,474
100%
100%
86
Programs seen implemented. Participants had an opportunity to check as
many options as they believed applied to this question. Out of the total of 1,495
participants, the largest number (n = 181) reported as many as 9 programs.
Additionally, 165 participants checked all 12 programs, 154 and 150 participants
checked 8 and 7 programs, respectively, and 32 participants reported that they had
seen only 1 program implemented on their campus. Further, 28 participants (1.9%)
reported that they had not seen any of the programs (listed in the survey)
implemented on their respective campus.
Two types of programs, self-defense classes and distributions of emergency
phone numbers information, have been implemented more than any other types of
programs (11.1% and 11%, respectively). The least popular prevention type of
programs, according to the respondents, was educational video sessions (4.8%).
Interestingly, the data showed that men-only and co-educational workshops were not
common on the participants’ college campuses: only 6% and 6.9%, respectively.
This finding was somewhat surprising, given how much attention these two kinds of
programming have received in scholarly literature. Table 7 presents the distribution
of these responses in relationship to the programs.
87
Table 7
Programs Implemented on College Campuses
Type of Program
n (Percentage)
Percentage
Percentage of
Cases
Self-defense classes for women 1,231 (82.3%) 11.1% 83.2%
Distributions of brochures with
emergency phone numbers
1,218 (81.5%)
11.0%
82.4%
Rallies/speak-outs, vigils, Take
Back the Night
1,119 (74.8%)
10.1%
75.7%
Orientation for incoming
students
1,062 (71.0%)
9.6%
71.8%
Distributions of promotional
materials
990 (66.2%)
9.0%
66.9%
Informational tables at public
events
976 (65.3%)
8.8%
66.0%
Media campaigns 956 (63.9%) 8.7% 64.6%
Clothesline projects 824 (55.1%) 7.5% 55.7%
Men and women violence
prevention workshops
758 (50.7%)
6.9%
51.3%
Theater productions with
follow-up discussions
689 (46.1%)
6.2%
46.6%
Men-only violence prevention
programs
659 (44.1%)
6.0%
44.6%
Educational video sessions with
follow-up discussions
531 (35.5%)
4.8%
35.9%
None that I have seen 28 (1.9%) 0.3% 1.9%
Total 11,041 (100%) 100.0% 746.5%
As seen in Table 8, between 30% and 40% of participants who reported any
of the 12 programs as having been implemented believe that violence on campus is a
medium or large/very large problem.
88
Table 8
Relationship between Program Implementation and Perceptions of Violence as a
Problem
Perceptions of Violence
as a Problem (Q8)/
Program
Implementation (Q40)
Very
Small
Problem
or Not At
All
Small
Problem
Medium
Problem
Large/
Very
Large
Problem
Total
Orientation
% within Q40
% within Q8
200
18.8%
10.2%
500
47.1%
9.7%
314
29.6%
9.5%
48
4.5%
8.3%
1,062
100%
Media campaigns
% within Q40
% within Q8
177
18.5%
9.0%
437
45.7%
8.5%
290
30.3%
8.8%
52
5.4%
9.0%
956
100%
Self-defense
% within Q40
% within Q8
236
19.2%
12.1%
578
47.0%
11.2%
353
28.7%
10.7%
63
5.1%
10.8%
1,230
100%
Men only
% within Q40
% within Q8
103
15.7%
5.3%
305
46.4%
5.9%
211
32.1%
6.4%
39
5.9%
6.7%
658
100%
Men and women
% within Q40
% within Q8
134
17.7%
6.8%
345
45.5%
6.7%
236
31.1%
7.1%
43
5.7%
7.4%
758
100%
Distributions of
promotional materials
% within Q40
% within Q8
173
17.5%
8.8%
463
46.8%
9.0%
301
30.4%
9.1%
53
5.4%
9.1%
990
100%
Educational video
sessions
% within Q40
% within Q8
87
16.4%
4.4%
250
47.1%
4.8%
167
31.5%
5.0%
27
5.1%
4.6%
531
100%
Table continues.
89
Table 8 (continued)
Perceptions of Violence
as a Problem (Q8)/
Program
Implementation (Q40)
Very
Small
Problem
or Not At
All
Small
Problem
Medium
Problem
Large/
Very
Large
Problem
Total
Distributions of
brochures
% within Q40
% within Q8
234
19.2%
12.0%
571
46.9%
11.1%
350
28.8%
10.6%
62
5.1%
10.7%
1,217
100%
Informational tables
% within Q40
% within Q8
173
17.7%
8.8%
466
47.8%
9.0%
284
29.1%
8.6%
52
5.3%
9.0%
975
100%
Theater productions
% within Q40
% within Q8
110
16.0%
5.6%
330
47.9%
6.4%
208
30.2%
6.3%
41
6.0%
7.1%
689
100%
Rallies, speak-outs
% within Q40
% within Q8
189
16.9%
9.7%
524
46.9%
10.2%
350
31.3%
10.6%
55
4.9%
9.5%
1,118
100%
Clothesline projects
% within Q40
% within Q8
141
17.1%
7.2%
393
47.7%
7.6%
244
29.6%
7.4%
46
5.6%
7.9%
824
100%
Total 1,957 5,162 3,308 581 11,008
Participants’ involvement in violence prevention. The findings on program
implementation were in keeping with the data related to Question 41 (the level of
professionals’ involvement with specific types of programs). As seen in Table 9, the
data revealed that only 15.5% of the respondents had experienced medium or high
involvement with men-only programming and that 23.7% had actively participated in
men and women educational workshops.
90
Table 9
Degree of Professionals’ Involvement with Prevention Programs
Type of Program/
Degree of involvement
None
Low
Medium
High
Total
Orientation for
incoming students
541
(37.4%)
272
(18.8%)
304
(21%)
328
(22.7%)
1,445
(100%)
Media campaigns
652
(45.8%)
334
(23.4%)
319
(22.4%)
120
(8.4%)
1,425
(100%)
Self-defense classes for
women
803
(55.7%)
323
(22.4%)
205
(14.2%)
111
(7.7%)
1,442
(100%)
Men-only violence
prevention programs
976
(70.3%)
196
(14.1%)
124
(8.9%)
92
(6.6%)
1,338
(100%)
Men and women
violence prevention
workshops
815
(58.3%)
250
(17.9%)
210
(15%)
122
(8.7%)
1,397
(100%)
Distributions of
promotional materials
563
(39.5%)
295
(20.7%)
337
(23.7%)
229
(16.1%)
1,424
(100%)
Educational video
sessions with follow-up
discussions
841
(60.4%)
229
(16.4%)
205
(14.7%)
118
(8.5%)
1,393
(100%)
Distributions of
brochures with
emergency phone
numbers
396
(27.5%)
269
(18.7%)
417
(29%)
358
(24.9%)
1,440
(100%)
Informational tables at
public events
695
(49.3%)
304
(21.5%)
253
(17.9%)
159
(11.3%)
1,411
(100%)
Theater productions
with follow-up
discussions
841
(60.4%)
217
(15.6%)
206
(14.8%)
128
(9.2%)
1,392
(100%)
Rallies/speak-outs,
vigils, Take Back the
Night
563
(39.6%)
323
(22.7%)
312
(22.0%)
223
(15.7%)
1,421
(100%)
Clothesline projects
823
(59%)
269
(19.3%)
181
(13.0%)
121
(8.7%)
1,394
(100%)
91
Moreover, for all the types of programs, except distributions of brochures,
most respondents had low to no involvement. Even self-defense classes, which the
data showed as the most prevalent on college campus, were not a type of program
with which student affairs professionals had been actively involved (21.9%). The
highest levels of involvement were reported for the orientation for incoming students
(22.7%) and distributions of brochures with emergency phone numbers (24.9%).
As seen in Table 10, the highest levels of involvement for the orientation for
incoming students (77.7%) were demonstrated by those working in Orientation and
New Student Programs, with X
2
(3, N = 1,445) = 37.95, p < .001, Dean of Students
Offices (71.5%), with X
2
(3, N = 1,445) = 76.37, p < .001, and Women’s Centers
(70%), with X
2
(3, N = 1,445)
= 9.50, p < .05. Distributions of brochures with
emergency phone numbers were most reported by those employed in Women’s
Centers (80%), with X
2
(3, N = 1,424) = 24.23, p < .001, Campus Safety (79.3%),
with X
2
(3, N = 1,400) = 11.38, p < .05, and Dean of Students Offices (74.2%), with
X
2
(3, N = 1,393) = 52.10 , p < .001. Overall, participants employed in Women’s
Centers demonstrated the highest levels of involvement compared to other job units,
including self-defense (52.4%), with X
2
(3, N = 1,442) = 17.349, p < .005, and men
and women workshops (71.4%), with X
2
(3, N = 1,397) = 45.06, p < .001, but not for
men-only workshops (31.6%), with X
2
(3, N = 1,388) = 6.10, p > .05.
92
Table 10
Women’s Center Employees’ Involvement
Program
Implementation
(Q41)/
Participants’ Job
Unit (Q6)
None
Low
Medium
High
Total
Orientation
% within Q6_30
4
20.0%
4
20.0%
2
10.0%
10
50.0%
20
100%
Media campaigns
% within Q6_30
27
57.4%
7
14.9%
7
14.9%
6
12.8%
47
100%
Self-defense
% within Q6_30
5
23.8%
5
23.8%
5
23.8%
6
28.6%
21
100%
Men only
% within Q6_30
10
52.6%
3
15.8%
2
10.5%
4
21.1%
19
100%
Men and women
% within Q6_30
6
28.6%
0
0.0%
5
23.8%
10
47.6%
21
100%
Distributions of
promotional
materials
% within Q6_30
2
10.0%
4
20.0%
3
15.0%
11
55.0%
20
100%
Educational video-
sessions
% within Q6_30
3
16.7%
4
22.2%
3
16.7%
8
44.4%
18
100%
Distributions of
brochures
% within Q6_30
1
5.0%
3
15.0%
5
25.0%
11
55.0%
20
100%
Informational tables
% within Q6_30
3
15.8%
5
26.3%
1
5.3%
10
52.6%
19
100%
Theater productions
% within Q6_30
4
20.0%
3
15.0%
4
20.0%
9
45.0%
20
100%
Rallies, speak-outs
% within Q6_30
3
15.0%
0
0.0%
6
30.0%
11
55.0%
20
100%
Clothesline projects
% within Q6_30
4
20.0%
3
15%
1
5.0%
12
60.0%
20
100%
93
Over half of participants who reported seeing orientation for incoming
students on their campus reported high and medium levels of involvement in
orientation (30.3% and 25.5%, respectively). This was not the case in regard to self-
defense; only 25.4% participants who had seen this program on their campus
reported that they had been actively involved in its implementation. Somewhat better
results were reported for men only, and men and women workshops, with 30.7% and
40.5% of active involvement, respectively. The best results were demonstrated for
distributions of brochures. Specifically 61.1% of those who had reported seeing this
program also had been actively involved in its implementation. These results are
presented in Table 11.
94
Table 11
Relationship between Program Implementation and Participants’ Involvement
Program Implementation
(Q40)/Participants’
Involvement (Q41)
None
Low
Medium
High
Total
Orientation
% within Q40
% within Q41
237
22.4%
43.8%
230
21.7%
84.6%
270
25.5%
88.8%
321
30.3%
97.9%
1,058
100%
73.2%
Media campaigns
% within Q40
% within Q41
274
29.1%
42.0%
263
27.9%
78.7%
288
30.6%
90.3%
116
12.3%
96.7%
941
100%
66.0%
Self-defense
% within Q40
% within Q41
605
49.8%
75.3%
302
24.9%
93.5%
200
16.5%
97.6%
108
8.9%
97.3%
1,215
100%
84.3%
Men only
% within Q40
% within Q41
299
45.6%
30.6%
154
23.5%
78.6%
115
17.6%
92.7%
87
13.3%
94.6%
655
100%
47.2%
Men and women
% within Q40
% within Q41
233
31.4%
28.6%
208
28.1%
83.2%
186
25.1%
88.6%
114
15.4%
93.4%
741
100%
53.0%
Distributions of
promotional materials
% within Q40
% within Q41
211
21.6%
37.5%
258
26.4%
87.5%
301
30.8%
89.3%
207
21.2%
90.4%
977
100%
68.6%
Educational video
sessions
% within Q40
% within Q41
106
20.1%
12.6%
147
27.8%
64.2%
162
30.7%
79.0%
113
21.4%
95.8%
528
100%
37.9%
Distributions of
brochures
% within Q40
% within Q41
230
19.2%
58.1%
236
19.7%
87.7%
385
32.2%
92.3%
346
28.9%
96.6%
1,197
100%
83.1%
Table continues.
95
Table 11 (continued)
Program Implementation
(Q40)/Participants’
Involvement (Q41)
None
Low
Medium
High
Total
Informational tables
% within Q40
% within Q41
330
34.3%
47.5%
258
26.8%
84.9%
225
23.4%
88.9%
150
15.6%
94.3%
963
100%
68.2%
Theater productions
% within Q40
% within Q41
190
27.9%
22.6%
180
26.4%
82.9%
187
27.5%
90.8%
124
18.2%
96.9%
681
100%
48.9%
Rallies, speak-outs
% within Q40
% within Q41
290
26.1%
51.5%
301
27.1%
93.2%
299
27.0%
95.8%
219
19.7%
98.2%
1,109
100%
78.0%
Clothesline projects
% within Q40
% within Q41
273
33.5%
33.2%
245
30.1%
91.1%
178
21.9%
98.3%
118
14.5%
97.5%
814
100%
58.4%
Perceptions of program effectiveness. Question 42 concerned perceptions of
the effectiveness of particular prevention programs. The question was designed so
that participants could check as many items as applicable and, as such, these data do
not reflect rankings. Rather, the programs can be ranked by how many “hits” were
received for each. The programming with the largest number of hits was orientation
for incoming students (12.8%), followed by self-defense classes for women (10.8%),
rallies and speak-outs (10.6%), men and women violence prevention programs
(9.2%), distributions of brochures with emergency phone numbers (8.6%), and
distributions of promotional materials (8.4%). Educational video sessions and
informational tables received the smallest numbers (5.2% and 5%, respectively).
Men-only violence prevention programming placed only seventh (8.2%), having
received nearly the same number of hits as media campaigns (8.1%).
96
Table 12
Prevention Program Effectiveness
Type of Program n (Percentage) Percentage of Hits
Orientation for incoming
students
995 (66.6%) 12.8%
Self-defense classes for
women
842 (56.3%) 10.8%
Rallies/speak-outs, vigils,
Take Back the Night
826 (55.3%) 10.6%
Men and women violence
prevention workshops
714 (47.8%) 9.2%
Distributions of brochures
with emergency phone
numbers
668 (44.7%) 8.6%
Distributions of
promotional materials
651 (43.5%) 8.4%
Men only violence
prevention programs
638 (42.7%) 8.2%
Media campaigns 629 (42.1%) 8.1%
Theater productions
w/follow-up discussions
518 (34.6%) 6.7%
Clothesline projects 462 (30.9%) 5.9%
Educational video sessions
with follow-up discussions
406 (27.2%) 5.2%
Informational tables at
public events
386 (25.8%) 5.0%
None that I have seen 46 (3.1%) 0.6%
Total 7,781 100.0%
97
Over half of the participants selected orientation (66.6%), self-defense
(56.3%), and rallies/speak-outs (55.3%) as most effective, as compared to
educational video sessions (27.2%) and informational tables (25.8%). In the
following sections, these results are presented in terms of participants’ demographic
characteristics, types of institution, and their perceptions of violence as a problem.
Perceptions of prevention approaches. Question 48 concerned perceptions of
the effectiveness of prevention programs based on the approach used. Participants
could select as many items as applicable. The greatest number of hits was given to
the programs that teach men about their role in violence prevention (32.7%). This
contrasts sharply with the data from Question 42, for which men-only programs were
not among the programs considered most effective (Table 13).
Table 13
Prevention Approach Effectiveness
Prevention Approach n (Percentage) Percentage of Hits
Teach men about their role in violence
prevention
1,402 (93.8%) 32.7%
Teach women about the risks of alcohol
consumption in relation to sexual assault
1,357 (90.8%) 31.7%
Teach women self-defense devices like
emergency whistles or pepper sprays
816 (54.6%) 19.1%
Teach women how to avoid dark and
dangerous places where strangers might
be hiding or lurking
565 (37.8%) 13.2%
Teach women not to dress or behave
provocatively or in a promiscuous
manner
141 (9.4%) 3.3%
Total 4,281 286.4%
98
Programs that teach women about the risks of alcohol consumption were
perceived as effective by 31.7% of participants. In keeping with the previously
reported data, self-defense programs as a prevention approach were also recognized
as effective (19.1%). Teaching women how to avoid dark and dangerous places was
selected only by 13.2% of participants, while only 3.3% of participants perceived
programs that teaching women not to dress provocatively was most effective.
Compared to the results on particular types of programs, the results related to
the effectiveness of types of prevention approaches or program content demonstrated
a higher level of consensus. Two types of approach, teaching men about their role
and teaching women about the risks of alcohol, were selected by over 90% of the
participants, as opposed to the teaching women not to dress provocatively, which
received only 9.4% of the hits. In the following sections, these results are presented
from the point of view of potential patterns in responses, based on the participants’
characteristics and type of institution.
Findings Related to Research Question 2
This section presents the findings on the effectiveness of particular violence
prevention programs (Question 42) and violence prevention approaches (Question
48). In particular, this section considers the findings in terms of how consistent the
participants’ responses are and whether there are patterns in regard to the
characteristics of the participants or their institutions.
Chi-square analyses revealed some significant differences based on the size,
type, and characteristics of the institution, gender of the participants, years in
99
profession, professional level, job unit, and their perception of sexual violence as a
problem. For the purpose of addressing this research question the top six (50%)
violence prevention programs were selected (Table 12), and only the results related
to the top six programs are discussed. These programs include orientation for
incoming students, self-defense programs, rallies/speak-outs, men and women
violence prevention programs, distributions of brochures with emergency phone
numbers, and distributions of promotional materials.
Perceptions of orientation for incoming students programs. Generally,
orientation for incoming students, as the most favored program, was about equally
favored by most groups, with only a few exceptions. Significant differences between
groups of participants were only found in three categories: type of institution (2-year
vs. 4-year public and 4-year private), with X
2
(2, N = 1,491) = 7.10, p < .05,
characteristics of institution (commuter vs. residential), with X
2
(1, N = 1,026) =
12.14, p < .001, and participants’ perception of violence as a problem, with X
2
(3, N
= 1,492) = 8.45, p < .05.
Representatives of 4-year private colleges favored this type of program the
most (70.3%), as opposed to those from 4-year public colleges (65.7%) and 2-year
public and private colleges (58.8%). Those representing residential colleges also
favored this type of programming (69.6%) versus those representing commuter
colleges (55.8%). Those who believe that violence is a very small problem/not a
problem at all preferred orientation in 61.9% of cases, while those who believe that it
100
is a very large problem preferred it in 73.9% of cases (Table 14). The more violence
is perceived as a problem, the more orientation programs are preferred.
Table 14
Differences in Perceptions of Orientation Based on Perceptions of Violence as a
Problem
Perceptions of
Violence as a
Problem (Q8)
Checked Orientation
for Incoming
Students
Did Not Check
Orientation for
Incoming Students
Total
Very small problem
or not at all
192 (61.9%) 118 (38.1%) 310 (100%)
Small problem 455 (65.5%) 239 (34.4%) 694 (100%)
Medium problem 297 (70.9%) 122 (29.1%) 419 (100%)
Large/very large
problem
51 (73.9%) 18 (26.1%) 69 (100%)
Total 995 (66.7%) 497 (33.3%) 1,492 (100%)
Perceptions of self-defense programs. Self-defense programs were the second
favored programs among the participants. Participants who had worked in the
profession fewer than 5 years favored self-defense classes to a considerably greater
extent (62.1%) than did participants in the other three groups, who had worked in the
profession 11 to 20 years, favoring this type of programming the least (49.8%), with
X
2
(3, N = 1,495) = 15.90, p < .005. As such, entry-level professionals favored this
type of approach (66.7%) the most, while mid-level favored it the least (49.8%), with
X
2
(3, N = 1,486) = 32.70, p < .001. Senior administrator-level and senior student
101
affairs officer-level professionals similarly favored his type of program, with 53.5%
and 50.9%, respectively.
Additionally, self-defense programs turned out to be more favored by female
professionals (60.2%) than by male professionals (51%), with X
2
(3, N = 1,473) =
11.72, p < .005. No significant differences were found between groups by size, type,
or other characteristics of institution, job unit, or perception of violence as a
problem.
Perceptions of rallies/speak-outs, vigils, and take back the night programs.
Significant differences were found on almost every item for this type of program,
except for the size of institution. Significant differences were found between
participants from 2-year colleges favoring this type of programming the least
(25.6%) and 4-year private and public colleges who similarly considered this kind of
programming effective (59.4% and 58.3% respectively), with X
2
(2, N = 1,358) =
64.49, p < .001.
Rallies also were preferred to a greater extent by participants from urban
institutions (59.5%) versus suburban (55.5%) and rural institutions (50.7%), with
X
2
(2, N = 1,358) = 7.06, p < .05, residential colleges (59.6%) versus commuter
colleges (44.6%), with X
2
(2, N = 1,358) = 7.06, p < .05.
Those who had worked the fewest number of years preferred rallies and
speak-out programs (62%) the most, with X
2
(3, N = 1,495) = 21.06, p < .001, but the
time spent in the field reduced the likelihood of placing this type of program among
effective ones (Table 15). Therefore, this type of programs was also most favored by
102
entry-level professionals (64.7%) versus mid-level (54.3%) and senior administrators
(47.3%), with X
2
(3, N = 1,486) = 31.38, p < .001.
Table 15
Differences in Perceptions Based on Years in Field
Type of
Program/Years
in Profession
5 Years or
Fewer
6-10 Years
11-20
Years
21+ Years
Total
Self-defense
classes for
women
392
(62.1%)
177
(53.5%)
149
(49.8%)
124
(53%)
842
(56.3%)
Educational
video sessions
with follow-up
discussions
138
(21.9%)
94
(28.4%)
90
(30.1%)
84
(35.9%)
406
(27.2%)
Theater
productions
197
(31.2%)
117
(35.3%)
108
(36.1%)
96
(41%)
518
(34.6%)
Rallies/speak-
outs, Take
Back the
Night
391
(62%)
174
(52.6%)
148
(49.5%)
113
(48.3%)
826
(55.3%)
None that I
have seen
13
(2.1%)
12
(3.6%)
7
(2.3%)
14
(6.0%)
46
(3.1%)
In regard to the data on the participants’ job units, the job unit categories
were collapsed into 8 main categories, as was explained above, to facilitate the
analyses. As seen in Table 16, of these 8 larger categories, participants representing
Residential Life and Student Services favored rallies and speak-outs the most (64.4%
and 60.3% respectively), while Campus Safety Officers favored these types of
programs the least (26.9%), with X
2
(7, N = 1,467) = 39.53, p < .001.
103
Table 16
Differences in Perceptions of Rallies/Speak-out Programs Based on Job Function
Job Function (Q8)
Checked
Rallies/Speak-outs,
Vigils, Take Back
the Night
Did Not Check
Rallies/Speak-outs,
Vigils, Take Back
the Night
Total
Administration 130 (47.6%) 143 (52.4%) 273 (100%)
Wellness 48 (46.2%) 56 (53.8%) 104 (100%)
Student Services 167 (60.3%) 110 (39.7%) 277 (100%)
Student
Groups/Activities
62 (55.4%)
50 (44.6%)
112 (100%)
Residence Life and
Housing
282 (64.4%) 156 (35.6%) 438 (100%)
Academic Services 102 (48.8%) 107 (51.2%) 209 (100%)
Judicial Affairs 15 (53.6%) 13 (46.4%) 28 (100%)
Campus Safety 7 (26.9%) 813 (55.4%) 26 (100%)
Total 813 (55.4%) 654 (44.6%) 1,467 (100%)
As seen in Table 17, 41% of those who believe that violence is a very small
problem or not at all selected rallies as one of the most effective programs, with X
2
(3,
N = 1,492) = 36.43, p < .001. While rallies/speak-out programs tended to be more
popular when violence was perceived as a problem, those who perceived violence as
a medium problem chose rallies more often (62.8%) than did those participants who
perceived it as a very large problem (59.4%). Females favored this kind of
programming more than did males, at 59.4% versus 49.4% respectively, with X
2
(1, N
= 1,473) = 14.03, p = .001.
104
Table 17
Perceptions of Rallies/Speak-out Programs Based on Perceptions of Violence as a
Problem
Perceptions of
Violence as a
Problem (Q8)
Checked
Rallies/Speak-out
Programs
Did Not Check
Rallies/Speak-out
Programs
Total
Very small problem
or not at all
127 (41.0%) 183 (59.0%) 310 (100%)
Small problem 395 (56.9%) 299 (43.1%) 694 (100%)
Medium problem 263 (62.8%) 156 (37.2%) 419 (100%)
Large/very large
problem
41 (59.4%) 28 (40.6%) 69 (100%)
Total 826 (55.4%) 666 (44.6%) 1,492 (100%)
Perceptions of men and women violence prevention programs. As a relatively
popular type of program, there were no significant differences between groups of
participants in regard to men and women violence prevention programs. An
exception to this was participants’ perceptions of this program in relation to
perceptions of violence as a problem, with X
2
(3, N = 1,492) = 9.02, p < .05. As with
rallies/speak-outs, men and women prevention workshop programs were chosen
more often by those who considered violence as a problem of medium importance
(53.5%) and those who considered it a large problem (52.2%) versus those who felt
that violence is a small problem (44.5%) and a very small problem (46.8%).
Perceptions of distributions of brochures with emergency phone numbers.
For distributions of brochures with emergency phone numbers, no significant
105
differences were found between groups by years spent in profession, type and
characteristics of institution, gender, or participants’ perceptions of violence as a
problem. Significant differences were found, however, for size of institution, with
X
2
(3, N = 1,486) = 8.89, p < .05, professional level, with X
2
(3, N = 1,486) = 14.91, p
< .005, and job unit of the participants, with X
2
(7, N = 1,467) = 14.05, p = .05.
Nearly one-half of the participants (49.8%) from smaller-sized (enrollment of 1,000
or fewer) institutions selected this type of programming, but the size of the
institution decreased the likelihood of choosing this programming. As a result,
40.8% of those working at the largest-sized institutions (enrollment of 10,001 or
more) selected this type of programming (Table 18).
Table 18
Differences in Perceptions of Prevention Programs Based on Size of Institution
Type of Program/
Size of Institution
1,000 or
Fewer
1,000-
3,000
3,000-
10,000
10,000+
Total
Media campaigns
239
(48.4%)
73
(29.9%)
111
(40.1%)
200
(42.5%)
623
(41.9%)
Distributions of brochures
with emergency phone
numbers
246
(49.8%)
107
(43.9%)
117
(42.2%)
192
(40.8%)
662
(44.5%)
Educational video sessions
151
(30.6%)
55
(22.5%)
90
(32.5%)
108
(22.9%)
404
(27.2%)
Informational tables at
public events
153
(31%)
56
(23%)
60
(21.7%)
113
(24%)
382
(25.7%)
Theater productions with
follow up discussions
181
(36.6%)
105
(43%)
101
(36.5%)
131
(27.8%)
518
(34.9%)
None that I have seen
11
(2.2%)
3
(1.2%)
10
(3.6%)
22
(4.7%)
46
(3.1%)
106
Although no significant differences were found between groups based on
years spent in profession, there were significant differences based on administrative
level. As seen in Table 19, distributions of brochures were most favored by entry-
level and senior student affairs-level administrators (49.7% each) versus mid-level
(38.1%) and senior administrator-level (43.8%), with X
2
(3, N = 1,486) = 14.91, p <
.005. Based on job function, a significantly higher percentage, with X
2
(7, N = 1,467)
= 14.05, p < .05, of Campus Safety officers preferred this type of programming
(65.4%), while representatives of Student Groups/Activities units checked this item
the least (36.6%).
Table 19
Differences in Perceptions of Distributions of Brochures Based on Job Function
Job Function (Q6)
Checked
Distributions of
Brochures with
Emergency Phone
Numbers
Did Not Check
Distributions of
Brochures with
Emergency Phone
Numbers
Total
Administration 125 (45.8%) 148 (54.2%) 273 (100%)
Wellness 41 (39.4%) 63 (60.6%) 104 (100%)
Student Services 118 (42.6%) 159 (57.4%) 277 (100%)
Student
Groups/Activities
41 (36.6%)
71 (63.4%)
112 (100%)
Residence Life and
Housing
215 (49.1%)
223 (50.9%)
438 (100%)
Academic Services 86 (41.1%) 123 (58.9%) 209 (100%)
Judicial Affairs 14 (50.0%) 14 (50.0%) 28 (100%)
Campus Safety 17 (65.4%) 9 (34.6%) 26 (100%)
Total 657 (44.8%) 810 (55.2%) 1,467 (100%)
107
Perceptions of distributions of promotional materials. For distributions of
promotional materials, significant differences were only found between groups of
participants based on the unit in which they worked, with X
2
(7, N = 1,467) = 16.83, p
< .05, and gender, with X
2
(1, N = 1,473) = 8.85, p < .005. Participants working in
Student Services and Judicial Affairs favored this type of programming the most
(48.4% and 50%, respectively), while those working in Student Groups/Activities
favored it the least (31.3%). Females favored this type of programming to a higher
degree than did males, at 46.8% versus 38.8%, respectively (Table 20).
Table 20
Differences in Perceptions of Distributions of Promotional Materials Based on Job
Function
Job Function (Q6)
Checked
Distributions of
Promotional
Materials
Did Not Check
Distributions of
Promotional
Materials
Total
Administration 110 (40.3%) 163 (59.7%) 273 (100%)
Wellness 37 (35.6%) 67 (64.4%) 104 (100%)
Student Services 134 (48.4%) 143 (51.6%) 277 (100%)
Student
Groups/Activities
35 (31.3%) 77 (68.8%) 112 (100%)
Residence Life and
Housing
202 (46.1%) 236 (53.9%) 438 (100%)
Academic Services 98 (46.9%) 111 (53.1%) 209 (100%)
Judicial Affairs 14 (50.0%) 14 (50.0%) 28 (100%)
Campus Safety 9 (34.6%) 17 (65.4%) 26 (100%)
Total 639 (43.6%) 828 (56.4%) 1,467 (100%)
108
Perceptions of programs that teach men about their role in violence
prevention. Unlike men-only workshops as a program, teaching men about their role
in violence prevention as an approach was found to be the most popular approach to
programming and was viewed as most effective by all groups of participants, based
on gender, years in profession, administrative level, job unit, size, and other
characteristics of institution. Significant differences were found between three
groups, based on type of institution: 4-year institutions (public and private) preferred
this type of programming to a higher degree than did 2-year institutions, at 95.1%
and 93.6%, respectively versus 87.5%, with X
2
(2, N = 1,491) = 13.27, p < .005.
Perceptions of programs that teach women about the risks of alcohol
consumption in relation to sexual assault. Similar to the findings for men’s
programming, teaching women about the risks of alcohol consumption was found to
be more popular among representatives of 4-year colleges than of 2-year colleges,
with X
2
(2, N = 1,491) = 19.79, p < .001. This type of programming approach is least
popular among employees of 2-year college (81.3%) versus 92.4% for 4-year public
college professionals and 91.2% of participants from 4-year private colleges.
Significant differences also were found between participants from residential
colleges favoring this approach (92.5%) versus those from commuter colleges
(88.4%), with X
2
(1, N = 1,026) = 4.25, p < .05.
All professionals (100%) working in Judicial Affairs thought that this
approach is one of the most effective versus 83% of those who work in the area of
Student Groups/Activities, with X
2
(7, N = 1,467) = 19.28, p < .01. No significant
109
differences were found between other groups of participants, based on perceptions of
violence as a problem, gender, years in profession, administrative level, size, or other
characteristics of an institution.
Perceptions of programs that teach women self-defense devices such as
emergency whistles or pepper sprays. Unlike other prevention approaches, self-
defense programs were favored in different degrees by participants based on years in
the profession, with X
2
(3, N = 1,495) = 22.93, p < .001. Those who served 5 years or
fewer favored this type of approach the most (61%), compared to those who worked
in the profession for 11-20 years (45.2%). Those who spent 6-19 years and 21+ years
similarly valued this approach (51.1% and 54.3%, respectively). This pattern is also
seen in the differences found between groups based on their administrative level:
64.5% of entry-level versus 48.9% of mid-level professionals favored this type of
programming, with X
2
(3, N = 1,486) = 28.65, p < .001, as seen in Table 21.
Table 21
Differences in Perceptions of Prevention Approaches Based on Administrative Level
Type of Prevention/
Administrative Level
Entry-
Level
Mid-
Level
Senior
Admini-
strative
Level
Senior
Student
Affairs
Officer
Total
Teach mean about
their role in violence
prevention
205
(42.1%)
153
(33.1%)
142
(38.6%)
60
(35.5%)
560
(37.7%)
Teach women self-
defense devices such
as emergency whistles
or pepper sprays
314
(64.5%)
226
(48.9%)
188
(51.1%)
84
(49.7%)
812
(54.6%)
110
Teaching women self-defense strategies was more favored by representatives
of 2-year colleges (73.8%) than by those of 4-year private (49.4%) or 4-year public
(54.2%) colleges, with X
2
(2, N = 1,491) = 29.45, p < .001. This approach received
the greatest number of hits from those of 2-year colleges, as compared to other
approaches. Commuter colleges favor self-defense to a greater extent (59%) than do
residential colleges (51.9%), with X
2
(1, N = 1,026) = 3.90, p < .05. No significant
differences were found between groups based on their institutions’ location.
Self-defense as an approach was preferred to a greater degree by those who
perceive violence as a very small problem or no problem at all (60.6%) versus those
who perceive that violence is a very large problem (33.3%), with X
2
(3, N = 1,492) =
19.21, p < .001 (Table 22). The more that Student Affairs professionals perceived
violence as a problem, the less they tended to believe in self-defense as an effective
approach.
Table 22
Perceptions of Self-Defense Approach Based on Perceptions of Violence
Perceptions of
Violence as a
Problem (Q8)
Checked Teaching
Women Self-
Defense Devices
Did Not Check
Teaching Women
Self-Defense
Devices
Total
Very small problem
or not at all
188 (60.6%)
122 (39.4%)
310 (100%)
Small problem 388 (55.9%) 306 (44.1%) 694 (100%)
Medium problem 216 (51.6%) 203 (48.4%) 419 (100%)
Large/very large
problem
23 (33.3%)
46 (66.7%)
69 (100%)
Total 815 (54.6%) 677 (45.4%) 1,492 (100%)
111
As seen in Table 23, although representatives of Judicial Affairs favored the
alcohol education approach, teaching women self-defense was their least favorite
(46.4%), as compared to other groups, in particular, Campus Safety (65.4%) and
Academic Services (63.6%), with X
2
(7, N = 1,467) = 19.94, p < .01.
Table 23
Perceptions of Self-Defense Approach Based on Participants’ Job Function
Job Function (Q6)
Checked Teaching
Women Self-
Defense Devices
Did Not Check
Teaching Women
Self-Defense
Devices
Total
Administration 132 (48.4%) 141 (51.6%) 273 (100%)
Wellness 52 (50.0%) 52 (50.0%) 104 (100%)
Student Services 167 (60.3%) 110 (39.7%) 277 (100%)
Student
Groups/Activities
55 (49.1%)
57 (50.9%)
112 (100%)
Residence Life and
Housing
229 (52.3%)
209 (47.7%)
438 (100%)
Academic Services 133 (63.6%) 76 (36.4%) 209 (100%)
Judicial Affairs 13 (46.4%) 15 (53.6%) 28 (100%)
Campus Safety 17 (65.4%) 9 (34.6%) 26 (100%)
Total 798 (5.44%) 669 (45.6%) 1,467 (100%)
Perceptions of programs that teach women how to avoid dark and dangerous
places. As seen in Table 24, teaching women how to avoid dark and dangerous
places was preferred by participants from 2-year colleges (61.3%) versus 4-year
public (37.3%) and 4-year private (31.4%) colleges, with X
2
(2, N = 1,491) = 46.82, p
112
< .001. It was also preferred to a greater extent by those working in commuter
colleges (44.2%), as compared to residential colleges (35%), with X
2
(1, N = 1,026) =
6.79, p < .01. These results are similar to those obtained for the self-defense
approach. Significant differences also were found between entry-level professionals
(42.1%) and other administrative levels, with mid-level administrators favoring this
approach the least (33.1%), with X
2
(3, N = 1,486) = 8.61, p < .05.
Table 24
Perceptions of Teaching Women How to Avoid Dark and Dangerous Places Based
on Administrative Level
Administrative Level
(Q7)
Checked
Teaching Women
How to Avoid
Dark and
Dangerous Places
Did Not Check
Teaching Women
How to Avoid
Dark and
Dangerous Places
Total
Entry Level 205 (42.1%) 282 (57.9%) 487 (100%)
Mid Level 153 (33.1%) 309 (66.9%) 462 (100%)
Senior Administrative
Level
142 (38.6%) 226 (61.4%) 368 (100%)
Senior Student Affairs
Officer
60 (35.5%) 109 (64.5%) 169 (100%)
Total 560 (37.7%) 926 (62.3%) 1,486 (100%)
As the perception of violence as a serious problem becomes stronger, the
perception of programs that teach women to avoid dangerous places becomes
weaker, with X
2
(3, N = 1,492) = 30.46, p < .001. As Table 25 indicates, those who
believe that violence is a very small problem or not a problem favor this type of
113
approach the most (49.7%) versus those who believe that violence is a very large
problem (27.5%).
Table 25
Perceptions of Teaching Women How to Avoid Dark and Dangerous Places Based
on Perceptions of Violence
Perceptions of Violence
as a Problem (Q8)
Checked
Teaching Women
How to Avoid
Dark and
Dangerous Places
Did Not Check
Teaching Women
How to Avoid
Dark and
Dangerous Places
Total
Very small problem or
not at all
154 (49.7%)
156 (50.3%)
310 (100%)
Small problem 262 (37.8%) 432 (62.2%) 694 (100%)
Medium problem 129 (30.8%) 290 (69.2%) 419 (100%)
Large/very large
problem
19 (27.5%) 50 (72.5%) 69 (100%)
Total 564 (37.8%) 928 (62.2%) 1,492 (100%)
Significant differences also were found between groups based on job unit,
with X
2
(7, N = 1,467) = 14.95, p < .05. The assessments of this prevention approach
by those who work in Campus Safety departments are in contrast to those of all other
job units, in particular, those who work in the area of Student Groups/Activities
(61.5% vs. 27.7%). No significant differences were found between groups based on
years spent in profession, gender, size, or geographic location of institution for this
prevention approach (Table 26).
114
Table 26
Perceptions of Teaching Women How to Avoid Dangerous Places Based on
Participants’ Job Function
Job Function (Q6)
Checked Teaching
Women How to
Avoid Dark and
Dangerous Places
Did Not Check
Teaching Women
How to Avoid
Dark and
Dangerous Places
Total
Administration 94 (34.4%) 179 (65.6%) 273 (100%)
Wellness 39 (37.5%) 65 (62.5%) 104 (100%)
Student Services 112 (40.4%) 165 (59.6%) 277 (100%)
Student
Groups/Activities
31 (27.7%)
81 (72.3%)
112 (100%)
Residence Life and
Housing
165 (37.7%)
273 (62.3%)
438 (100%)
Academic Services 87 (41.6%) 122 (58.4%) 209 (100%)
Judicial Affairs 9 (32.1%) 19 (67.9%) 28 (100%)
Campus Safety 16 (61.5%) 10 (38.5%) 26 (100%)
Total 553 (37.7%) 914 (62.3%) 1,467 (100%)
Perceptions of programs that teach women not to dress or behave
provocatively or in a promiscuous manner. The results indicated that this approach
to programming is not as effective as the other four previously discussed. There were
found significant differences, however, in how participants perceived this type of
programming in three categories: type of institution, geographic location, and
gender.
115
Participants from 2-year colleges gave this approach the greatest percentage
of hits (15%), with X
2
(2, N = 1,491) = 11.50, p < .005. Only 6.6% of those working
in 4-year private colleges consider this approach effective, as do 10.3% of those
working in 4-year public colleges. Although there were no significant differences
between participants from commuter and residential colleges, this approach was
found to be the most popular among representatives of rural colleges (13.4%) versus
9.2% of those working in urban and 6.3% working in suburban colleges, with X
2
(2,
N = 1,358) = 11.57, p < .005. Finally, while women prefer self-defense programs to a
greater extent than do men, more male (11.7%) than female (8.2%) professionals
favor the approach that would teach women not dress or behave provocatively, with
X
2
(1, N = 1,473) = 4.88, p < .05.
Summary
Although the overall response rate was lower than initially expected, the
1,495 responses that were the basis of the results of analyses in this chapter were
deemed sufficient to yield the information needed to address the research questions.
Most participants had worked in the field of student affairs fewer than 20 years in the
entry- and mid-level positions. They were predominantly employed at 4-year urban
and suburban, residential colleges. The largest group represented Residence Life and
Housing, followed by those in Administration, Student Services and Activities, and
Academic Services. Female respondents significantly outnumbered male
respondents.
116
The majority of respondents believe that violence is a small problem or not a
problem at all. The vast majority of respondents was somewhat and quite satisfied
with their institution’s effectiveness in addressing the problem of violence on
campus. The participants’ responses demonstrated that the programs most
implemented on campus are self-defense classes and distributions of brochures with
emergency phone numbers. For all types of programs, except distributions of
brochures, most respondents had low to no involvement. Moreover, self-defense
programs, which were reported to have been implemented the most, showed some of
the lowest rates of involvement.
The most effective types of programs were believed to be orientation for
incoming students, self-defense, rallies/speak-outs, men and women violence
prevention programs, distributions of brochures with emergency phone numbers, and
distributions of promotional materials. In regard to prevention approach, the largest
number of participants considered programs that teach men their role in violence
prevention to be the most effective. Given that men-only programs were not believed
to be very effective, this finding was surprising. Teaching women about the role of
alcohol consumption in relation to sexual assault as an effective approach followed
closely to that of men’s programming.
Overall, although considered one of the most effective, self-defense programs
demonstrate a low level of involvement, but a high level of implementation. Men and
women violence prevention workshops, seen as relatively effective, nevertheless
demonstrated a low level of implementation and a relatively low level of
117
involvement. More consistent and relatively high levels of implementation,
involvement, and effectiveness are associated with rallies/speak-outs, distributions of
brochures, and promotional materials.
Significant differences between groups, based on the size, type and
characteristics of the institution, gender of the participants, years in profession,
professional level, job unit, and their perception of sexual violence as a problem,
were found on most items related to the effectiveness of prevention programming.
The data reflect certain patterns for certain groups of participants. For example, those
who had worked fewer than 5 years favored self-defense classes and the approach
that teaches women about self-defense more than did other groups. Entry-level
professionals differed from their more senior level colleagues, as well, in that they
tended to favor such programs as self-defense classes, a trend that further reinforced
the pattern. Entry-level professionals also favored prevention approaches that teach
women how to avoid dark and dangerous places.
Participants from smaller-sized institutions preferred distributions of
brochures with emergency phone numbers and the smaller the size of the institution,
the more they tended to favor this type of programming. Respondents from 4-year
colleges favored orientation for incoming students and rallies/speak-outs to a greater
extent than did respondents from 2-year and, especially, private 4-year colleges. In
regard to prevention approaches, they favored those that teach women about the risks
of alcohol, but, to a greater extent, those approaches that teach men about their role
in violence prevention. Participants from 2-year colleges, in comparison, favor
118
approaches that teach women about self-defense and how to avoid dark and
dangerous places. Although not especially favoring it, a significantly larger number
of professionals working at 2-year colleges also considered approaches that teach
women not to dress provocatively to be effective. Urban and suburban colleges, as
opposed to rural ones, favored rallies and speak-out programs. Additionally, while
not particularly popular among participants, teaching women how not to dress
provocatively was more favored by rural and least favored by suburban colleges.
Professionals from residential colleges showed a greater preference for most
programs, especially orientation and rallies/speak-outs, as well as approaches that
teach women about the risks of alcohol. Commuter colleges tend to favor approaches
that teach women how to avoid dark and dangerous places and about self-defense
devices.
Data based on the job unit in which participants worked, revealed that self-
defense classes are also most valued by those working in Campus Safety and
Residence Life, distributions of brochures were most favored by those working in
Judicial Affairs and Student Services, and rallies/speak-outs by Residence Life and
Student Services. In addition to favoring self-defense programs, those working in
Campus Safety favored self-defense as an approach, as well as teaching women how
to avoid dark and dangerous places, while teaching women about alcohol
consumption was unanimously and to a greater extent valued by those working in
Judicial Affairs.
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Those who believe that violence is a large or very large problem favored
orientation for incoming students, while those who viewed it as a medium problem
favored men and women prevention workshops as well as rallies and speak-outs.
Those who believe that violence is a very small problem, in comparison, favored
such approaches as teaching women to avoid dark and dangerous places and self-
defense devices.
Finally, female participants favored self-defense classes, as well as most
other programs including rallies/speak-outs, more than did men. There were no
differences, however in men’s and women’s perceptions of self-defense as an
approach, but there were significant differences in that men favored teaching women
not to dress provocatively more than did women. The following chapter will provide
a discussion of these findings with regard to future research and implications for
practical applications.
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CHAPTER 5
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND IMPLICATIONS
The problem of violence on college campuses is long established and has
been increasingly discussed in the scholarly literature in the past two decades. In
response to this research and to increased public awareness, federal legislation,
known as the Jeanne Clery Act, has become a major factor in how colleges respond
to crime and make their campuses safer environments. Since 1990, the year of its
introduction, the Clery Act has evolved into a law that may not yet be ideal, but is
comprehensive and influential. In addition to the original crime reporting and
statistics requirements, the Act has been amended to include new crime categories,
and mandates both the development and distribution of sexual assault policies and
the disclosure of information about registered sexual offenders on campus. The
legislation also has established itself as not only concerned with specific crime
statistics, but also making college campuses safer environments through crime
prevention policies and procedures (Fisher et al., 2002).
Despite the fact that the legislation has considerably improved and increased
campus reporting and response strategies and mechanisms (Fisher, 1995), it has also
been criticized for and associated with a number of implementation failures,
including not improving crime rates (Janosik & Gregory, 2003), not educating
students about violence (Burling, 1993), and producing only symbolic, rather than
substantive, information (Fisher et al., 2002).
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The existing policies and programs, in particular, have been questioned in
regard to their format and approach (DeKeseredy et al., 2000; Hong, 2000; Potter et
al., 2000). Primary prevention is reported to be least utilized on college campuses
(Potter et al., 2000). Moreover, most prevention programs are not based on any
particular sexual violence theory (Schewe & O’Donohue, 1996), and colleges and
educators use a wide range of definitions of violence and sexual assault.
While a single, most effective approach to violence prevention is yet to be
established, certain variables have proved to be more important than others to
achieving the best results. The so-called socio-cultural factors, risk factors such as
rape supportive beliefs and risk populations (e.g., young males, athletes, and
fraternity members), as well as the known barriers to successful prevention are
among them. In addition, both men-only and women-only programs are recognized
as popular or effective, particularly when compared to mixed audience programs.
Men as the target population and potential allies, however, have recently attracted
more attention due to the development of the bystander approach, as well as the
enormous potential of men to create a change in this area.
Although most student affairs professionals do not educate students in the
classroom, they are, nevertheless, first and foremost, educators. Therefore, as
mentioned by Richardson (1994), they, like teachers, make decisions based on
personal beliefs about what works. Without examination of these beliefs, practices
may sometimes reflect irrelevant or questionable ideas and assumptions and not
produce the desirable and necessary change.
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It is likely that beliefs, practices, strategies, and approaches used for campus
sexual violence prevention by student affairs professionals require re-examination
and reconsideration for positive change on college campuses to occur. To determine
where the discrepancies between research-based theories and what is being
implemented in real life occur, it is important to know the beliefs and perceptions of
student affairs professionals in regard to effective prevention and the variables
influence these beliefs and perceptions.
Discussion of the Findings
The main purpose of the study was to determine which sexual violence
prevention programs student affairs administrators perceive as the most effective and
the extent to which these perceptions reflect research in violence prevention. Another
purpose of the study was to explore the extent of consensus in regard to their
attitudes towards sexual violence prevention programming and to determine whether
the administrators’ perceptions of different approaches towards violence prevention
were influenced by their demographic characteristics, perceptions of causality of
violence against women, and the type of institutions at which they are employed.
Two research questions guided the study and were the basis for the data
collection, analysis, and subsequent discussion of the data. These two main questions
were:
1. What sexual violence prevention programs do student affairs professionals
perceive as most effective?
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2. Is there any pattern in student affairs professionals’ perceptions of violence
prevention programs based on their gender, years in the field, professional level, unit
they work in, size and type of the institution, and perceptions of violence as a
problem?
The results of the initial analyses of the data showed that, similar to studies
by Soden (2006) and Colaner (2006), in which the participants demonstrated limited
level of awareness of the Clery Act, the participants in the present study also lacked
the necessary depth in understanding the problem of violence on campus and its
solutions. Most participants did not regard violence on campus as a serious problem
or a problem at all, were somewhat or quite satisfied with how their institution
handles the problem or instances of violence, but, at the same time, reported low to
no involvement with violence prevention programs. Moreover, only 1.4% of
participants were unable to assess their institution’s effectiveness and 1.9% reported
that they had not seen any of the programs, listed in the survey, implemented on their
campus. These data indicate that a significant number of potential contributors to
campus safety are being underutilized.
In regard to the effectiveness of prevention programs, the most effective
programs were believed to be orientation programs for incoming students, self-
defense programs, rallies/speak-outs, and distributions of brochures and other
promotional materials. The data showed that men-only and men and women
educational workshops were not common on the participants’ college campuses
(only 44.6% and 51.3%, respectively, reported seeing these programs implemented).
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Such programs were not considered particularly effective; only 47.8% of all
participants considered co-education effective and 42.7% selected men-only
programs. These findings were somewhat surprising, given how much attention these
two kinds of programming have been receiving in scholarly literature (Avery-Leaf &
Cascardi, 2002; Berkowitz, 1994, 2002; Breitenbecher, 2000; Hong, 2000; Lonsway,
1996; Schewe, 2002; Schewe & O’Donohue, 1993, 1996).
Another surprising finding concerned the prevention approach; the vast
majority of the participants (93.8%) considered programs that teach men their role in
violence prevention to be the most effective. Given that men-only programs were not
believed to be especially effective, this finding may indicate that the participants may
believe that the approach is effective, but also see some barriers to incorporating it in
actual programming. In addition, because the participants almost equally favored
(90.8%) the approach that teaches women about the risks of alcohol, they may
believe that men-only programs may not be effective because they omit the alcohol
component in relation to women. Overall, it is unclear what participants understand
under prevention oriented towards men. Do they see it as prevention oriented
towards men as perpetrators or as bystanders? It is also unclear what role they
attribute to alcohol in sexual assault and whether they view women’s alcohol
consumption as a leading cause of assaults or just a contributing factor.
Most consistent, with relatively high levels of implementation, involvement,
and effectiveness are rallies/speak-outs, orientation for incoming students, and
distributions of brochures and promotional materials, i.e., programs oriented towards
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larger numbers of people. Moreover, it is possible that the participants who reported
their involvement in such programs might have regarded mere participation or
attendance as active involvement in the development and implementation of such
programs. Rallies and distributions of brochures typically demonstrate only the
numbers of participants in such events, with the assumption that all of the
participants have been educated or trained after participation. Therefore, the
perception of high effectiveness of such mass programs may stem from the mass
character of the programs, rather than from actual data collected prior to and after the
events.
The study revealed that certain factors influence the perceptions of student
affairs professionals in regard to violence prevention programming. Those include
years spent in the field, the size and type of institution, job units, perceptions of
violence as a problem, and gender.
One area for which differences between groups or patterns stood out was
self-defense programming. Both self-defense programs and approaches were favored
by professionals who had worked fewer than 5 years or were employed in entry-level
positions. This finding is even more interesting in the context of other patterns
whereby professionals who perceive violence as a small problem or not a problem at
all favor self-defense as a type of approach. Further, the perception of this approach
is negatively influenced as participants perceive the problem more seriously. In other
words, the more that Student Affairs professionals perceive violence as a problem,
the less they tend to believe in self-defense as the most effective approach.
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Therefore, it may be that both entry-level, less experienced professionals and those
who are least concerned with the problem of sexual violence on campus are naïve
and uninformed, both about the problem of violence and the ways to handle it. After
all, there is a perception that self-defense programs shift all the responsibility toward
potential and actual victims, a perception with which these professionals may agree.
Self-defense programs or approaches, and in some cases both, were also
favored to the largest extent by women, representatives of commuter and 2-year
colleges, and those working in Campus Safety and Residence Life. These additional,
and sometimes unexpected, findings may reflect the complex and sometimes
ambiguous character of self-defense prevention. For example, that self-defense
approaches are liked by women more than by men may be the result of the feminist
side of this approach; feminists often advocate self-defense programs for their ability
to empower women (De Welde, 2003; McCaughey, 1997, 1998) and, at the same
time, caution against shifting responsibility for sexual assaults onto women (Stanko,
1998). It is also important to note that Colaner’s (2006) study found that, while
women perceive that violence on campus is a greater problem than do their male
colleagues, they are less knowledgeable about the Clery legislation or less likely to
be in a position of authority to implement policies or significant change.
Representatives of commuter and 2-year colleges, in comparison, may think
that it is not their responsibility to deal with the problem of violence because they do
not have residence halls on campus and may believe some common rape myths,
particularly those about how and where sexual assaults happen. Therefore, they rely
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on self-defense programs. Finally, Campus Safety representatives usually are heavily
involved in such programming, and thus may be biased, and may not be informed
well enough about other educational strategies.
It is worth noting that orientation programs for incoming students, in
addition to being perceived as most effective in this study, are also an important
aspect of any Student Affairs department due to their often compulsory character and
the massive numbers of students educated, compared to other programs. In regard to
perceptions of effectiveness of orientation for incoming students, there were no
significant differences found between groups, based on years in the profession or
professional level. Nor were there any significant differences based on gender.
Significant differences were found, however, based on the type of institution and
participants’ perceptions of violence as a problem. In particular, orientation
programs were favored to a greater extent by participants from 4-year residential
colleges than from 2-year and commuter colleges.
This finding, however, may be a sign that student affairs staff working in 4-
year or residential colleges consider violence as a problem serious enough to be
included in orientation programs. Not surprisingly, the study also revealed that
orientation was favored the most by those who believe that violence is a very large
problem. In comparison, 2-year or commuter campuses may not favor orientation as
effective programming for the same reasons as they favor self-defense: they do not
believe that violence on campus is a large problem or that it is their responsibility to
be involved in its prevention. In addition, orientation programs are not always as
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widespread as at 2-year colleges. Therefore, they may not be regarded as a useful
programming vehicle by 2-year, smaller, and commuter colleges as they are in 4-
year residential institutions.
The commuter/residential differences also emerged as a factor influencing
perceptions of effective programming in regard to prevention approaches. Thus,
participants from commuter colleges favor, to a greater extent, approaches that teach
women how to avoid dark and dangerous places as well as those that teach
participants about self-defense devices. These perceptions may stem from the belief
that sexual violence is usually perpetrated by strangers or that women often are to
blame for either provoking assaults or not being sufficiently cautious. Therefore,
according to these participants, there may be no need to include any information
about violence into the orientation for all incoming students.
Another interesting pattern concerned the participants’ job units in
relationship to their perceptions of prevention programming. Besides the above
discussed self-defense programs favored, to a greater extent, by Campus Safety
officers, it is worth noting that representatives of Campus Safety also favored
teaching women how to avoid dark and dangerous places. Judicial Affairs
representatives, in contrast, favored distributions of brochures and approaches that
teach women about alcohol consumption. While it may be that Campus Safety
officers share similar beliefs to those working in commuter colleges regarding
women’s responsibility for their own safety, campus adjudicators may believe in the
causal role of alcohol in sexual assaults.
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Somewhat surprising were the findings in regard to perceptions of violence as
a problem. Those who believed that violence was a large or a very large problem
believed, to a greater extent, in the effects of orientation, while those who believed
violence was a medium problem favored co-education prevention workshops and
rallies. It is obvious that orientation for incoming students is the most popular
program, not just among student affairs professionals in general, but also among
those who are greatly concerned with violence on campus. Orientation segments,
however, that are dedicated to information about violence, are rarely evaluated for
their effectiveness and, therefore, it is unclear what rationale student affairs
professionals, including this group, are using.
Not surprising was the finding that those who believe that violence is a very
small problem or not at all a problem favored approaches that teach about self-
defense and how to avoid dark and dangerous places. Similar to other groups
favoring these approaches, including the Campus Safety officers discussed above,
these participants may attribute all the responsibility for “provoking” sexual violence
to women or perceive them as responsible for their own safety as well. These “rape
beliefs” appear to be in accordance with the perception of the unimportance of sexual
violence.
Finally, similar to Colaner’s (2006) study, gender differences emerged as a
significant factor in this study. Colaner’s study demonstrated that, while female
participants felt that violence was a problem to a greater extent than did their male
counterparts, they were, however, less knowledgeable about the legislation
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regulating campus safety and likely less capable to influence or implement violence-
related policies due to the lower ranking positions they held. The present study
revealed, in addition, that women favored all types of prevention to a greater extent
than did men, where significant differences in perceptions of prevention program
effectiveness existed (5 out of 12 programs). Unexpectedly, however, women
showed a preference for self-defense programs, while men demonstrated a
preference for approaches that teach women not to dress provocatively. It may be
that, due to the lower degree of influence or authority that women tend to have when
it comes to implementing and developing policies, they have a tendency to rely on
the strategies that depend entirely on women and that, to a certain degree,
presumably empower women. Men, in comparison, may still share some of the rape
beliefs that permeate the college culture, although not to the extent of shifting the
responsibility for making the campus safer entirely to women.
Limitations of the Study
Some of the limitations of this study already have been discussed in Chapters
1 and 3. These included low response rate, participants’ membership in three
professional associations, and the online nature of the survey. Additionally, more
limitations can be noted that were directly related to the research survey instrument.
One of the biggest limitations of the study was that the survey instrument was
designed and shared by three co-investigators who pursued different research goals.
Therefore, not only was the survey longer than are most typical surveys, it also
contained questions pertaining to a number of different areas. As a result, a number
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of participants who initially intended to respond to the survey questions either
abandoned it at the very beginning or quit before finishing it. Additionally, some
participants skipped certain questions. The latter may have happened due to the
length of the survey or to the fact that certain questions were formulated in a way
that presented difficulties for participants.
Another limitation was the nature of the survey questions. Most of the
questions used in this study were multiple choice questions with the “check all that
apply” option. That allowed the participants more flexibility but, at the same time,
limited the clarity of the answers and the analyses of the data. Moreover, the
database generated by the survey turned out to be so expansive that it created too
many topics to include in one study. Some of the topics that would make sense to
have covered here, such as a more thorough study of patterns based on particular job
units or other participant characteristics, and beliefs about sexual assault and alcohol,
were omitted due to space limitations. These topics will need to be covered in future
studies.
Finally, as was discussed in Chapter 4, after generating the frequencies, it
became clear that certain questions had to be changed in relation to the treatment of
the data. Certain multiple choice options generated very few responses and had to be
merged with other categories closest to them. Although these changes helped with
the analyses of the data, they may have limited the interpretation of the data and
possibly eliminated some additional data.
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Recommendations for Future Research
Despite its limitations, this study represents the first attempt to explore the
perceptions of student affairs professionals in regard to violence prevention
programming. Therefore, this study is equally important from the point of view of its
own results and its implications for future research. In fact, this study may have
created more questions in regard to perceptions of violence prevention than it
answered.
As this study demonstrated, there are some significant differences between
how student affairs professionals view the problem of violence and its prevention,
based on the type of college at which they are employed. Comparative studies
exploring the differences between 2-year and 4-year, residential and commuter, and
private and public universities could provide a more thorough analysis and
explanation of the differences in the perceptions and approaches to dealing with
violence on campus.
The discrepancies revealed in the present study between what the participants
had seen implemented, what programs they had been involved in, and what programs
and approaches they considered most effective suggest that the connection between
what student affairs professionals do and what they know and believe is complex and
needs further investigation. What motivates participants to choose one approach or
program over another? Are they guided by their own experience, theoretical
knowledge, or common myths and beliefs about sexual violence? Where do they
learn about college violence and what do they know about it? What do they believe
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about their own role in securing campus safety? Answering these questions through
more qualitative studies would be helpful for achieving a more in-depth
understanding of what colleges do to make their campuses safer and what they are
guided by when dealing with sexual violence on campus. In addition, studying the
relationship between student affairs professionals’ perceptions of violence as a
problem, their satisfaction with their institution’s efforts in fighting this problem, and
what programs they consider most effective would both help to better interpret the
present results and to create more useful insights as to the barriers to successful
violence prevention.
It is unclear what participants’ perceptions of violence as a problem were
based on in the current study (e.g., what number or type of events on campus they
encountered or were informed about) and to what causes participants attributed
violence on campus. Astor, Behre, Fravil, and Wallace (1997) claim that, without
knowing what type of violent events respondents actually encounter or without
behavioral data, it is “extremely difficult” to interpret answers to subjective
questions in regard to perceptions. Addressing these issues, especially from a zero-
tolerance perspective, as suggested by Astor et al. (1997), could help us to better
assess the link between student affairs professionals’ awareness, explanations of
violence on campus, their sense of responsibility for its prevention, and the
implementation of prevention strategies, which ultimately would lead to
improvements in prevention.
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Similarly, perceptions of prevention programs would be easier to interpret if
the list of prevention programs was more exhaustive or compared to the experiences
of student affairs professionals in this area. In addition, most of the programming,
with the exception of self-defense and men-only workshops, currently implemented
on campus is not described in the literature from the point of view its evaluation,
staff involvement, or implementation. Again, as in the case of the perception of
violence, subjective perception questions would provide more “interpretable” results
when combined with behavioral or factual data.
Further research could study in more detail the relationships between job
units, years in the field, professional level, and authority to implement prevention
policies, gender, and perceptions of violence and its prevention effectiveness. Of
particular interest is the finding that less experienced, entry-level professionals, those
least concerned about the problem of violence, and those working in Campus Safety,
all favored more traditional violence prevention programming than did those with
more experience and authority, as well as those who were concerned about the
problem of violence to a greater degree. Future research also could look into how
these relationships correlate with gender, knowledge of the problem, perceptions of
one’s own ability to create change, one’s beliefs about what causes sexual violence,
and one’s knowledge of prevention strategies.
Three major promising areas are evaluation of existing prevention programs
with subsequent comparative analyses, research on potential causes of sexual
violence, on the one hand, and victimization, on the other hand, and identifying the
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gap between what is being used for prevention purposes and what is considered
effective, with subsequent research on the barriers to effective prevention on campus.
Among these three, evaluation is of the greatest importance, as it has the potential to
affect and enrich the other two.
Every discourse about effective prevention programs needs to take into
account evaluation of the effectiveness of particular programs. For example, the
highest-ranking program in this study, orientation for incoming students, is rarely
evaluated by those developing and conducting such programs on campus or
researchers working in the area of violence prevention. Therefore, it is safe to
assume that most participants who perceive orientation as one of the most effective
programs in the present study made their choice based on personal beliefs rather than
factual knowledge. Future studies involving participants who have conducted and
evaluated violence prevention programs may be of even greater interest and value in
the context of prevention effectiveness.
Finally, while this study has provided a valuable insight into sexual violence
prevention, a shorter, more focused survey designed for randomly selected but
experienced participants could significantly add to the present results and their
interpretation. The information from the questions in the survey that were not
included in this study, due to its nature and that were related to participants’ beliefs
about alcohol and sexual assault on campus, also could provide additional insight
especially in view of how they correlate with the perceptions of prevention
programs.
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Implications for Professional Practice
According to Carr and Ward (2006), “student affairs professionals are in a
key position to challenge and lead students in making their campuses safer for
everyone. Through multifaceted and collaborative campus efforts, best practices for
preventing campus violence will continue to be needed and empirically tested
whenever possible” (p. 403). In light of the findings of the present study, as well as
studies by Colaner (2006) and Soden (2006), a few recommendations can be made as
to how student affairs professionals can make college campuses safer through
violence prevention programming.
One of the most important challenges to campus safety is that student affairs
professionals do not possess enough knowledge about the problem of violent
victimization of college students and, as a result, do not perceive this problem as
serious enough. In the present study, 67.3% of all participants regard violence as a
small problem or not a problem at all. Almost half of the participants were quite or
very satisfied with the status quo in the area of violence prevention on their campus.
A strong link between those who did not perceive violence as a problem, those who
favored self-defense programs, and those with a lack of experience also suggests that
certain groups of professionals (those who have worked 5 years and fewer or in
entry-level positions) are less informed about the problem of college safety and may
project their personal beliefs about sexual violence onto their view of the problem.
If we are to agree with Janosik (2004a) that “good professionals make a
considerable effort to remain current in their career fields” (p. 401), it is imperative
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that we seek to improve the education of future and current student affairs
professionals in the area of violence in the same way as we do in the area of the
Clery Act legislation (Colaner, 2006). This could be done through the introduction of
more violence-related curricula taught in graduate programs as well as professional
workshops for those already employed, particularly those employed in entry-level
positions and who have just begun their careers in student affairs.
Another disturbing finding was that most participants in the study had never
been involved in any violence prevention programming, especially in educational
workshops such as men-only or men and women workshops, educational video
sessions, or theater productions. Student affairs professionals, first and foremost, are
seen, however, as “campus guardians and student advocates” (Rund, 2002). It is
clear that student affairs professionals should take a more active role in a variety of
prevention programs and not just the ones that are focused on mass printed
information distribution.
As was suggested by Gregory and Janosik (2002), an office of Clery Act
compliance could be created, however, not just by the U.S. Department of Education
(DOE) and for the DOE, but also on individual campuses. The existing compliance
offices overseeing compliance of Title IX, Americans with Disabilities Act, and
related legislation could take on the responsibility of overseeing compliance with the
Clery Act as well. Such an office also could oversee prevention and risk-reduction
programs on campus as well as develop, review, and disseminate crime and violence
response and prevention policies. Although there is a view that sexual violence
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represents such a large area and such a serious offense that it needs to be tackled
separately from Title IX, as a result of such separation, there is no equivalent of a
compliance office or any particular office on campus that would be responsible for
compliance with the Clery Act and crime prevention.
It is somewhat unclear what motivated the participants to choose particular
options in each check-all-that-apply question. The fact that orientation for incoming
students was perceived as most effective by most participants is twofold. On the one
hand, orientation for incoming students may be perceived by participants as one of
the most powerful and important programs on campus and, therefore, one that can
make a difference. It is important to note, however, that most participants reported
low to no involvement in this type of programming and that orientation as a
prevention program is rarely evaluated for its effectiveness in changing student
attitudes, behaviors, or campus crime/victimization rates. Similarly, other programs,
with the exception of self-defense and men and women prevention workshops, such
as rallies and distributions of brochures and other promotional materials are
considered educational and are capable of reaching the largest numbers of students at
a time, but have not been evaluated enough to be considered effective. It is also
unclear whether self-defense, the second most “popular” program according to this
study, was perceived as effective due to the widely spread myth about sexual assault
as largely a stranger crime, rather than a student-on-student crime, especially in light
of a particularly low reported involvement in this type of programming.
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It remains unknown how student affairs professionals’ perceptions are
shaped: through their personal experience by involvement in programming, program
evaluation, or knowledge of the research literature (or a lack thereof). The literature
on violence prevention, however, suggests that, as long as causes of sexual violence
have not been yet identified, violence prevention can only be effective through a
comprehensive approach focusing on multiple facets and components of violence
and student development. Therefore, student affairs professionals need to be
educated about all existing prevention programs and encouraged to develop various
types of prevention, with further evaluations where possible, rather than focusing
exclusively on a particular type of programming or population, however effective
such a program may be.
Integrating data and feedback collection, analyses, and longitudinal
evaluations of campus safety and programs also could considerably contribute to our
understanding of what prevention work is most effective. It is also apparent that
student affairs professionals are not fully aware of the extent of acquaintance rape on
campus, especially those working in Campus Safety and Residence Life, Judicial
Affairs and Academic Services, as well as those employed in 2-year colleges, in
entry-level positions and with fewer than 5 years’ experience. Therefore, these
groups of employees particularly need education with more focus on acquaintance
rape and inter-partner violence.
Any improvements or actions taken towards better professional preparation
of student affairs professionals or their increased involvement require additional
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funding. To date, colleges have been required to provide Clery Act statistics and
information about their policies and prevention programming without any
specifically directed financial assistance by the federal government. Such funding is
needed, although it could vary depending on the needs of certain types of colleges.
As the present study demonstrated, representatives of 2-year colleges prefer risk-
reduction approaches, while representatives of smaller-sized institutions prefer media
campaigns and distributions of printed materials. Such colleges typically do not have
Women’s Centers, and their employees may be likely to perceive sexual violence as
happening either outside their college campus or as perpetrated by strangers and,
therefore, as the victim’s problem. They are also typically under-funded, and a
significant number of those employed at 2-year institutions are not even aware that
the Clery Act applies to their institutions (Soden, 2006). Targeted funding for these
types of colleges could significantly improve their student affairs professional
preparation and their efforts in violence prevention.
Finally, the discrepancies between the perceived effectiveness of particular
programs and of particular prevention approaches as well as differences between
groups employed in different campus units may be a sign of a lack of communication
between key players or potential key players in crime response and prevention on
campus. Not only is there a need for such communication, but it also needs to be
routine and an integral requirement of all campus safety and sexual violence policies.
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Conclusion
The problem of crime and violence on college campuses has been perceived
as serious enough to have generated a significant amount of research and to have
been an impetus to the enactment of federal legislation, known as the Clery Act. The
Clery Act has always pursued two distinct intentions of increasing awareness of
college administration and the public, with one serving the goal of improving
campus safety and the other allowing students and their families to make informed
decisions when applying to college (Gregory & Janosik, 2003; Janosik, 2004b).
Unfortunately, the introduction of the legislation and its further amendments have
not, to date, produced a reduction of crime on college campuses (Janosik, 2004b;
Janosik & Gehring, 2003; Janosik & Gregory, 2003), although it has been reported to
have somewhat improved crime reporting, crime awareness, and prevention (Carter,
2002; Gregory & Janosik, 2003; Janosik & Gregory, 2003). Further, the relative
benefits of improved reporting and campus statistics are questionable due to the
frequent claims that a large number of crimes, especially sexual assault, remain
underreported (Fisher et al., 2002; Hoffman et al., 1998; Sloan et al., 1997) and
crime reporting generally ineffective (Janosik, 2004b; Janosik & Gregory, 2003). At
the same time, the findings in the Colaner (2006) and Soden (2006) studies show that
those responsible for reporting under the Clery Act do not possess enough
knowledge about the Act and their own responsibilities.
Despite the debate about whether college campuses are safer or more
dangerous than off-campus surroundings and whether the Clery Act is an effective
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way to combat crime on campus, it remains clear that the problem of crime is
prevalent and that higher education institutions remain responsible for undertaking
every effort to provide a safe environment for their students, be it dictated by legal,
consumer, or moral issues. It is also becoming clear that many major questions
concerning victimization rates, causes of violence, and effectiveness of prevention or
any other measures to combat crime remain unanswered or the answers are so
complex that any simplistic and categorical statement or recommendation appears to
be wrong or highly controversial and thus may hamper progress in making campus
environments safer. The statement that college campuses are safe or safer
environments than are off-campus ones, in particular, sounds too simplistic, as it
does not take into account the variability in the rates of college student victimization
on and off campus. It also underestimates the magnitude of the problem of sexual
victimization as the most common violent offense on campus.
Nevertheless, despite all the arguments against the Clery Act, there is a belief
that desirable change on college campuses can be brought on without changing the
legislation (Wilcox, Jordan, & Pritchard, 2007) because the Clery Act is not a
“panacea” for the problem of campus violence (Gregory & Janosik, 2002). In the
long run, neither students nor their parents pay much attention to the Clery statistics
and, if they do, this information is hardly sufficient to reduce the risks of
victimization or violence perpetration (Janosik & Gregory, 2002; Janosik, 2004b,
2001; Wilcox et al., 2007). Rather than formal and dry Clery statistics reports, it is
informal educational programs, crime awareness, and prevention information that
143
attract more of students’ attention and are capable of making a difference (Fisher et
al., 1998; Janosik, 2001; Janosik & Gregory, 2003; Wilcox et al., 2007).
To date, despite sufficient interest in the Clery Act and crime prevention on
campus, very few studies have been conducted and published on the effectiveness of
the Clery Act and violence prevention programming. At the same time, the scant
research that has been conducted indicates mixed results that do not allow for a
complete picture of what higher education institutions do and whether they are
effective in their efforts to reduce crime and violent victimization on campus.
Clearly, however, student affairs professionals are and should be in the front rows of
the ongoing war on campus crime.
This investigation, therefore, through its focus on the role of student affairs
professionals in campus violence prevention has provided a valuable contribution to
the discourse on the effectiveness of prevention programming. It was also a first step
in understanding why certain prevention programs and approaches are used on
campus in favor of others and why prevention efforts do not always achieve
desirable results. The findings of this examination, along with the studies by Colaner
(2006) and Soden (2006), demonstrated a certain lack of interest on the part of
student affairs professionals in the Clery Act and sexual violence prevention, certain
preferences for more traditional prevention programs, and a certain disregard for
programs that have been increasingly recommended by researchers for
implementation.
144
This study partially confirmed the main hypothesis stated earlier, that there is
a certain gap between what research considers effective in violence prevention, what
is currently being implemented on college campuses, and what college student
affairs professionals consider effective. The gap, however, is not limited to the
professionals’ lack of knowledge about sexual violence prevention, but also by
professionals’ lack of awareness and understanding of the problem of violence, the
necessity of violence prevention, and general apathy towards their personal
involvement on the cause.
It is important, however, that student affairs professionals are aware of the
legislation and its requirements, as well as the extent and nature of crime on campus
and the full range of prevention strategies currently existing. It is also important that
research continues investigating while practitioners continue contributing to their
investigation of what prevention programming could be most effective through
personal involvement and evaluation of various prevention programs targeting a
variety of student populations.
By realizing that the Clery Act requires full compliance, not just through
accurate crime reporting, but also through a greater effort to develop and implement
effective policies and prevention programs, college and university administrators
will be able to make the Clery Act much more than just symbolic legislation and will
achieve significant results in reducing crime on their individual college campuses.
As the findings in this study suggest, educating student affairs professionals is as
important as educating students about the problem of crime and violence, as student
145
affairs professionals have to deal with the legislation on multiple levels, from
responding to and reporting crime to changing attitudes and behaviors of the entire
campus community.
146
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APPENDICES
165
APPENDIX A: INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE IN THE STUDY
November 7, 2005
Dear Colleague:
You have been selected to participate in a nationwide research project studying
campus safety issues. This is the largest study of its kind, seeking responses from a
wide cross-section of student affairs professionals.
Safety is an issue of vital importance on campuses across the country and student
affairs professionals are often the point of contact for many students. This study is
designed to gather information about student affairs professionals’ understanding,
perceptions, and behaviors regarding campus safety issues and the legislation that
governs our actions. Your participation is vital to helping us achieve a broad cross-
section of responses. Whether you are new to the profession or a senior leader in the
field, your participation will help add to the literature and improve practice.
Your participation in this study is completely anonymous and voluntary. This
research study has the approval of the University of Southern California’s
Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Research Studies (USC
UPIRB #UP-05-00197).
Completion of the survey should take less than 20 minutes. To participate in this
study, please access the survey instrument at http://www.surveymonkey.com/
s.asp?u=142971433837. You will be asked to complete a standard consent form prior
to taking the survey. Please complete the survey by December 2, 2005. If you have
any questions regarding this research project, please contact the research team
members at the contact information listed below.
Thank you for willingness to share your experiences and feedback with us and for
contributing to the betterment of our profession.
Sincerely,
Irina Bordiujevici Kevin Colaner Juli Soden
Phone: 213-740-2157 Phone: 213-821-2214 Phone: 213-740-4928
e-mail: bordiuje@usc.edu e-mail: colaner@usc.edu e-mail: jsoden@usc.edu
166
APPENDIX B: SURVEY INSTRUMENT
Campus Violence Survey
1) I have read this disclaimer and agree to all terms and conditions.
o I agree and have read the disclaimer
o I do not wish to proceed
2) How long have you been in the student affairs profession?
o 5 years or less
o 6-10 years
o 11-20 years
o 21-30 years
o More than 30 years
3) What is the estimated total enrollment of the institution where you work?
_____ Estimated Enrollment
4) What is the classification of your institution?
o 2-Year Public
o 2-Year Private (Non-Profit)
o 2-Year Private (For-Profit)
o 4-Year Public
o 4-Year Private (Non-Profit)
o 4-Year Private (For-Profit)
5) What characteristics best describe your institution? (check all that apply)
o Urban
o Rural
o Suburban
o Commuter
o Residential
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6) Which of the following categories best describes the unit in which you work?
(please select only one)
o Academic Advising
o Admissions
o Assessment, Research, and Program Evaluation
o Athletics
o Campus Safety
o Career Development
o College or Student Unions
o Community Service / Service Learning
o Commuter Services or Off-campus Housing
o Counseling or Psychological Services
o Dean of Students Office
o Dining Services
o Disability Support Services
o Enrollment Management
o Financial Aid
o Fundraising or Fund Development
o Graduate and Professional Student Services
o Greek Affairs
o Health Services
o International Student Services
o Judicial Affairs
o Leadership Programs
o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Student Services
o Multicultural Student Services
o Orientation and New Student Programs
o Recreation and Fitness Programs
o Religious Programs and Services
o Registration Services
o Residence Life and Housing
o Student Activities
o Women’s Centers
o Other (please specify) ________
7) What is your administrative level?
o Entry Level
o Mid Level
o Senior Administrative Level (director or manager)
o Senior Student Affairs Officer
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8) How do you perceive the problem of violence on your campus?
o A very small problem or not at all
o A small problem
o Medium level
o Large
o Very large
9) Are you aware of the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and
Campus Crime Statistics Act? (If "no", please skip to question 13)
o Yes
o No
10) How would you rate your level of awareness of the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of
Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act?
o Not at all aware - Please skip to question 13
o I have heard of it, but don't know the details of it
o I am somewhat familiar with this act
o I am very familiar with the act and its amendments
o I am extremely familiar with the act and use it daily
11) When did you first learn of the Clery Act? Write the year you learned of the Act
or leave it blank if you do not know about the Clery Act?
_______________
12) Where did you first learn about the Clery Act?
o Graduate School (masters)
o Graduate School (doctorate)
o Professional Conference Program [Please indicate sponsoring
organization]
o Campus In-service program
o Web-cast [Please indicate sponsoring organization]
o Special Seminar [Please indicate sponsoring organization]
o Other (please specify)_______________
13) Do you consider yourself a campus crime reporter?
o Yes
o No
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14) Have you ever reported a campus crime for the purpose of complying with any
regulation?
o Yes
o No
15) Do you know how to report a campus crime specifically for Clery Act
compliance?
o Yes
o No
16) Do you think you received sufficient training about Clery legislation during your
formal education?
o Did not receive training
o Received insufficient training
o Received sufficient training
17) To what degree do you believe you need training regarding the Clery Act
legislation?
o Not at all, I am confident in my knowledge
o A refresher course would be useful
o Some training would be helpful
o I could benefit a great deal from training
o I have had no training and need to be educated on this topic
18) To what degree do you think other student affairs professionals at your institution
need training about the Clery Act legislation?
o Not at all, I am confident in their knowledge
o A refresher course would be useful
o Some training would be helpful
o They could benefit a great deal from training
o They have had no training and need to be educated on this topic
19) Which training format would you be most likely to utilize? [Check all that apply]
o On-line training
o Compliance manual
o Professional conference
o On-campus workshop
o On-campus safety audit
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20) Are your institution's crime statistics available to the public?
o Yes
o No
o Don’t Know
21) Do you know how to access your institution’s crime statistics?
o Yes
o No
22) After a crime occurs, does your institution notify staff and students about the
incident?
o Yes
o No
o Don’t Know
23) To the best of your knowledge, has anyone at your institution sought to hide
campus crime information?
o Yes
o No
o Don’t Know
24) If you answered yes, who do you believe is most likely to hide crime?
o Presidents
o Public Affairs/Development Officials
o Campus Police Officers
o Deans of Students
o Admissions Recruiters
o Campus Judicial Affairs Officers
o Not Applicable, I answered no
25) Are you aware of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)?
o Yes
o No
171
26) Do you think it is a FERPA violation for a student affairs professional to disclose
the outcome of a sexual assault student disciplinary hearing to the victim?
o Yes
o No
o Don’t Know
27) Do you think campus law enforcement records are protected by the Family
Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)?
o Yes
o No
o Don’t Know
28) If a student tells a student affairs administrator about the theft of a backpack from
the university library, does that administrator have to report that as a campus
crime?
o Yes
o No
o Don’t Know
29) If a student tells a student affairs administrator about a crime that occurred
against the student, on non-university property bordering campus, does that
administrator have to report that as a campus crime?
o Yes
o No
o Don’t Know
30) According to the Clery Act reporting guidelines, which of the following are
considered campus crimes? (check all that apply)
o an assault that occurs in the parking lot of a satellite campus
o a person not affiliated with the school is assaulted on the city street
bordering campus
o theft of a laptop from a residence hall
o a sexual assault occurring on campus
o All are reportable crimes
172
31) Does the Clery Act legislation apply to private higher education institutions?
o Yes
o No
o Don’t Know
32) Are universities required by law to make campus crime logs open to the general
public?
o Yes
o No
o Don’t Know
33) Does someone have to be convicted of a crime before it is reported under the
Clery Act?
o Yes
o No
o Don’t Know
34) Is it possible for an institution to lose federal student aid funds for non-
compliance with the Clery Act?
o Yes
o No
o Don’t Know
35) Are hate crimes included in Clery legislation?
o Yes
o No
o Don’t Know
36) Do 2-year institutions have to comply with the Clery Act?
o Yes
o No
o Don’t Know
173
*The next 11 questions concern your attitudes about violence against women on
campus.
37) To what extent do you think your institution is effective in addressing the
problem of violence against women?
o Very Effective
o Quite Effective
o Somewhat Effective
o Not Effective
38) In the last academic year, have you seen a policy or set of procedures addressing
the problem of violence against women published on your campus website or in
its printed materials?
o Yes
o No
39) To what extent do you think the Clery Act has improved the quality of crime
prevention programming on your campus?
o Greatly
o Sufficiently
o Very little
o Not at all
o Don’t know
40) Throughout your career, which of the following programs have you seen
implemented that include or focus on preventing violence against women?
(check all that apply)
o Orientation for incoming students
o Media campaigns (Ads/public service announcements in student
newspapers, posters, press conferences, articles, newsletters)
o Self-defense classes for women
o Men only violence prevention workshops
o Men and women violence prevention workshops
o Distributions of promotional materials like emergency whistles,
wallet cards, t-shirts, bracelets, key rings, etc.
o Educational video sessions with follow-up discussions
o Distributions of brochures with emergency phone numbers
o Informational tables at public events
o Theater productions with follow-up discussions
o Rallies/speak-outs, vigils, Take Back the Night
174
o Clothesline projects
o None that I have seen
41) What is the extent of your participation in any of the following programs on
violence against women? (check all that apply)
High Medium Low None
Orientation for incoming
students O O O O
Media campaigns (Ads/public
service announcements in
student newspapers, posters,
press conferences, articles,
newsletters) O O O O
Self-defense classes for
Women O O O O
Men only violence prevention
workshops O O O O
Men and women violence
prevention workshops O O O O
Distributions of promotional
materials like emergency
whistles, wallet cards, T-shirts,
bracelets, key rings, etc. O O O O
Educational video sessions
with follow-up discussions O O O O
Distributions of brochures
with emergency phone
numbers O O O O
Informational tables at public
events O O O O
Theater productions with
follow-up discussions O O O O
175
Rallies/speak-outs, vigils,
Take Back the Night march O O O O
Clothesline projects O O O O
42) Which of the following efforts in preventing violence against women do you find
most effective (check all that apply):
o Orientation for incoming students
o Media campaigns (Ads/public service announcements in student
newspapers, posters, press conferences, articles, newsletters)
o Self-defense classes for women
o Men only violence prevention workshops
o Men and women violence prevention workshops
o Distributions of promotional materials like emergency whistles,
wallet cards, t-shirts, bracelets, key rings, etc.
o Educational video sessions with follow-up discussions
o Distributions of brochures with emergency phone numbers
o Informational tables at public events
o Theater productions with follow-up discussions
o Rallies/speak-outs, vigils, Take Back the Night march
o Clothesline projects
o None that I have seen
The following questions address your personal beliefs regarding rape and sexual
assault on campus.
43) Most sexual assault victims on your campus eventually report the crime to the
police or the judicial affairs office.
o Strongly Agree
o Agree
o Neutral
o Disagree
o Strongly Disagree
176
44) Most sexual assaults are committed by strangers.
o Strongly Agree
o Agree
o Neutral
o Disagree
o Strongly Disagree
45) Most rapes could be avoided if female students carried self-defense devices like
whistles or pepper sprays.
o Strongly Agree
o Agree
o Neutral
o Disagree
o Strongly Disagree
46) Campus law enforcement should take the responsibility for sexual assault
prevention.
o Strongly Agree
o Agree
o Neutral
o Disagree
o Strongly Disagree
47) The people primarily responsible for preventing violence against women are
men.
o Strongly Agree
o Agree
o Neutral
o Disagree
o Strongly Disagree
177
48) The most effective programs would be those that: (Check all that apply)
Teach women how to avoid dark and dangerous places where strangers might be
hiding or lurking.
o Teach women not to dress or behave provocatively or in a
promiscuous manner
o Teach women about the risks of alcohol consumption in relation to
sexual assault
o Teach women about self-defense devices like emergency whistles or
pepper sprays
o Teach men about their role in violence prevention
49) The use of alcohol by students is responsible for the majority of sexual assaults
on our campus.
o Strongly Agree
o Agree
o Neutral
o Disagree
o Strongly Disagree
50) The use of alcohol by students strongly correlates with the number of sexual
assaults on our campus.
o Strongly Agree
o Agree
o Neutral
o Disagree
o Strongly Disagree
51) If the female victim has used alcohol prior to the sexual assault, it makes it
difficult or impossible to establish the responsibility for the assault.
o Strongly Agree
o Agree
o Neutral
o Disagree
o Strongly Disagree
52) What is your gender?
o Female
o Male
o Trans-Gendered
178
53) If you could change one thing to make your college campus safer what would
that be? You may skip this question if you do not have an opinion you wish to
share.
179
APPENDIX C: INFORMED CONSENT STATEMENT
Campus Violence Survey - Participant Information Sheet
University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education
INFORMATION SHEET FOR NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH
An examination of student affairs administrators’ knowledge of campus safety issues
and their attitudes toward violence prevention programming.
You are being asked to participate in a research study conducted by Kevin Colaner
(EdD candidate), Irina Bordiujevici (EdD candidate), and Juli Soden (EdD
candidate) from the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern
California. The results of this study will contribute to the dissertations of the above
individuals. You were selected as a possible participant in this study because you are
employed in the student affairs department at a higher education institution and/or
because your job has been identified by the research team as a job directly related to
the field of student affairs at the institution at which you are employed. A total of
15,000 subjects will be selected from the lists of three major student affairs
associations (NASPA, AACC, and ACPA) to participate. Your participation is
voluntary.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
We are asking you to take part in a research study because we are trying to learn
more about professional preparation of college administrators in the area of campus
safety, your views and attitudes regarding issues of campus safety, and your
perceptions of the effectiveness of campus crime prevention programming on U.S.
college campuses. We hope that the findings of this study will help us and others in
the field understand areas where campus systems seem to be working well and areas
where more work can be done.
Completion and electronic submission of the questionnaire will constitute consent to
participate in this research project.
PROCEDURES
You will be asked to participate in an online survey, which you can access on a
designated webpage at a time convenient to you. The web link and directions on how
to access the survey are included in your invitation letter. The survey will cover three
areas. The questions are multiple choice (with the exception of one question that is
open-ended) and are intended to explore your: (1) knowledge base, (2) training, and
(3) attitudes towards the issues of campus safety on the campus(es) where you have
worked. Completion of the survey is anticipated to last approximately 20 minutes.
180
You may skip any question you have difficulty with, but it is anticipated that you
will answer all or most questions to the best of your knowledge and ability. Keep in
mind that we will not refer to you or your campus by name or include any other
identifying characteristic in any publication or presentation of the findings. You and
your institution’s confidentiality will be protected.
POTENTIAL RISKS AND DISCOMFORTS
We do not anticipate any risks, inconveniences, or discomforts that could be
involved in completion of this survey. You will not be asked to discuss the details of
any campus crime, violence, or institutional violation specifically. Rather, it is your
knowledge of, as well as beliefs and perceptions about, the effectiveness of your
college’s crime response and prevention system, as well as your knowledge and
views of campus safety issues in general that are the center of this study. Moreover,
you have the right to skip any question or stop the completion of the survey at any
time without consequence.
POTENTIAL BENEFITS TO SUBJECTS AND/OR TO SOCIETY
The study will not directly benefit any of the participants. The potential benefits to
society and the education system, however, might be significant. By testing the
student affairs administrators’ knowledge of campus violence issues, understanding
their professional preparation standards and practices, and understanding their
attitudes and views on the existing violence prevention programs, higher education
institutions might be able to improve their policies regarding campus safety and
programs preventing crime on campus, as well as their compliance with existing
legislation. This may, in turn, improve student enrollment, retention, and the
reporting of violence incidents by students, as well as influence the preparation and
training of student affairs administrators and potentially reduce crime and violence
on American college campuses.
PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION
Your participation is highly appreciated, but you will not be paid for participating in
this research study, nor should you incur any expenses associated with participation.
CONFIDENTIALITY
Any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can be
identified with you will remain confidential and will be disclosed only with your
permission or as required by law.
Neither you nor your institution will be identified at any point in the study. The data
submitted and further transferred from the SurveyMonkey.com website will be
entirely anonymous and will not have any personal or institutional identifiers.
Nowhere in the study will you be asked to discuss any specific cases or reveal any
individual information that could potentially identify you or your institutions. For the
181
purpose of this study, we are only interested in your knowledge of and your attitudes
toward particular campus safety and violence prevention issues.
The data will be stored on a password-protected computer drive accessible only by
principal investigators. The data will be stored for at least three years after the
completion of the study.
When the results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no
information will be included that would reveal your identity.
PARTICIPATION AND WITHDRAWAL
You may choose whether to be in this study. If you volunteer to be in this study, you
may withdraw at any time without consequences of any kind. You may also refuse to
answer any questions you do not want to answer and still remain in the study. The
investigators may withdraw you from this research if circumstances arise that
warrant doing so. The investigators may withdraw any of the participants from the
study in cases when they do not get a response or when a response does not contain
adequate and/or satisfying data. If for any reason a participant does not respond and
complete the online survey within the 6-week period designated for data collection,
he/she will be entirely dropped from the study.
IDENTIFICATION OF INVESTIGATORS
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact:
Kevin Colaner, EdD Candidate, Principal Investigator
Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089- 4038,
213-821-2214, colaner@usc.edu
Juli Soden, EdD Candidate, Co-Principal Investigator
Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
213-740-4928, jsoden@usc.edu
Irina Bordiujevici, EdD Candidate, Co-Principal Investigator
Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
213-740-2157, bordiuje@usc.edu
RIGHTS OF RESEARCH SUBJECTS
You may withdraw your consent at any time and discontinue participation without
penalty. You are not waiving any legal claims, rights, or remedies because of your
182
participation in this research study. If you have questions regarding your rights as a
research subject, contact the University Park IRB, Office of the Vice Provost for
Research, Grace Ford Salvatori Building, Room 306, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1695,
(213) 821-5272 or upirb@usc.edu.
183
APPENDIX D: COLLAPSED JOB CATEGORIES
Definitions of Collapsed Job Categories
The following job category definitions have been created on the basis of the
broader original list used in the survey. This grouping and collapsing of the
categories was performed at the researcher’s request by four USC Student Affairs
professionals who served as independent consultants. Each definition includes each
its own list of the original job categories that match the new broader category and,
therefore, they are consistent with the original listing used in the survey.
Administration
Education administrators are those who manage daily activities of the
institution, provide instructional leadership, develop budgets, academic policies, and
programs, and direct and coordinate the activities of other student affairs
departments, e.g., student groups/activities and student services. Education
administrators include the following original survey categories: Dean of Students’
Offices, Vice-Presidents, Provosts and Vice-Provosts, Associate Vice President’s
and Vice-Provost’s Offices, Vice-Chancellors, President’s Office, Auxiliary
Services, Development Office, University Relations, Administrative Services,
Student Affairs Risk Management, and Civil Rights Compliance.
Wellness
Wellness involves campus departments or units that deal with a dimension of
health that goes beyond the absence of disease or infirmity and includes the
184
integration of social, mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical aspects of health
(from NASPA). Wellness includes the following original survey categories:
Counseling or Psychological Services, Disability Support Services, Recreation and
Fitness Programs, Health Services, and Athletics.
Student Services
Student services include a wide range of services and resources that help
students reach their academic goals and enhance their personal, intellectual, and
social development. Student services include the following original survey
categories: Leadership Programs, Community Service/Service Learning, Commuter
Services or Off-Campus Housing, Student Activities, Religious Programs and
Services, and Career Development.
Student Groups/Activities
Student groups/activities involve departments dedicated to social and
organizational activities of the student body. Although student groups/activities are
typically part of Student Services on campus, for the purposes of this research, this
category focuses more on the social aspect of student services rather than on
academics. Includes the following original survey categories: Greek Affairs,
International Student Services, LGBT Student Services, Multicultural Student
Services, Women’s Centers, and College of Student Unions.
Residence Life and Housing
Residence life and housing is a department that assists students through its
service and programs in satisfying their needs for living and learning in a safe,
185
inclusive, culturally engaging, student-centered community. Residence life and
housing includes the following original survey categories: Residence Life and
Housing.
Academic Services
Academic services are academic advising units that provide a broad range of
services and programs, including advising, career services, experiential learning,
honors and tutorial programs, and initiatives for underrepresented students, to
admitted students to meet their needs from the time of enrollment through
graduation. Academic services include the following original survey categories:
Graduate and Professional Student Services, Registration Services, Orientation and
New Student Programs, Academic Advising, Admissions, Financial Aid, and
Enrollment Management.
Judicial Affairs
The judicial affairs department enforces student conduct standards, promotes
academic integrity, ethics, and student learning in a safe and civil campus
environment by responding to and resolving alleged violations of the Code of
Student Conduct and other applicable policies regarding student behavior. Judicial
affairs include the following original survey categories: Judicial Affairs.
Campus Safety
The campus safety department is dedicated to ensuring the physical safety of
students, employees, and guests through crime prevention, detection and response,
providing security information, and enforcing campus safety rules and regulations on
186
and off-campus, in the areas adjacent to campus or property owned or controlled by
the University. The campus safety department includes the following original survey
categories: Campus Safety.
Abstract (if available)
Abstract
In the past decade violence on college campuses and, specifically, sexual violence have been widely recognized as a significant and persistent problem. Multiple studies have been conducted on the prevalence, incidence, causes, and effects of this type of violence nationwide. This problem also has been addressed through national education policy and legislation. The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act has been a major event in this policy and a separate target of research on its own. However, no studies up to date have comprehensively studied what colleges do to meet the requirements of the Clery Act and to reduce crime on their respective campuses.
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Gottlieb, Irina
(author)
Core Title
Sexual violence prevention on college campus as a Clery Act requirement: perceptions from the field
School
Rossier School of Education
Degree
Doctor of Education
Degree Program
Education
Publication Date
07/19/2008
Defense Date
12/04/2007
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
Clery Act,college campus,OAI-PMH Harvest,perceptions,prevention programs,sexual violence,student affairs,violence prevention
Language
English
Advisor
Astor, Ron Avi (
committee chair
), Sundt, Melora A. (
committee chair
), Merriman, Lynette S. (
committee member
)
Creator Email
bordiuje@usc.edu
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m1359
Unique identifier
UC176098
Identifier
etd-Gottlieb-20080719 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-191126 (legacy record id),usctheses-m1359 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
etd-Gottlieb-20080719.pdf
Dmrecord
191126
Document Type
Dissertation
Rights
Gottlieb, Irina
Type
texts
Source
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Repository Name
Libraries, University of Southern California
Repository Location
Los Angeles, California
Repository Email
cisadmin@lib.usc.edu
Tags
Clery Act
college campus
perceptions
prevention programs
sexual violence
student affairs
violence prevention