The Journal of Primary Prevention, Vol. 16~ No. 2, 1995
Child Sexual Abuse: Description and Evaluation of a K-6 Prevention Curriculum Sharon K. Araji, 1~3 Ray Fenton, 2 and Tom Straugh 2
This article describes and evaluates a K-6 child sexual abuse prevention curriculum that was piloted in a large northwestern school district 1986-89. Paired t-tests using pre-test and post-test scores from a random sample of 1,391 K-6 students indicates that significant learning occurred at all grade levels. Analysis of variance results suggest that, overall, learning is not related to students' gender or to the school's socioeconomic level. Responses by 197 teachers concerning their evaluations of curriculum materials and training were positive. Study limitations and future research plans and needs are discussed. KEY WORDS: child sexual abuse prevention; sex education; child sexual abuse program evaluation.
INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Child sexual abuse was recognized as a major social problem in the late 1970's when official reports alerted feminists (Herman, 1981, Rush, 1980), professionals in the area of family relations, researchers (Finkelhor, 1979; Kempe and Kempe, 1984), and the public to the problem (Araji, 1985). This attention led to increased activity involving documentation of the extent of child sexual abuse, attention to definitional and legal problems (Buckley, 1986; Russell, 1982), explanations of why such abusive behavior Presented at American Educational Research Association Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, April, 1994. lDr. Araji is a Full Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alaska
Anchorage (UAA). 2Drs. Fenton and Straugh are Research Associates in the Evaluation and Assessment Department at the AnchorageSchool District. 3Address correspondence and reprint requests to Sharon K. Araji, Ph.D., Department of Sociology,UniversityAlaska Anchorage,3211 ProvidenceDrive, Anchorage, AK 99508. 149 O 1995 Human SciencesPress,Inc..
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occurs, and an increased development of treatment and/or prevention techniques (Burgess et al., 1983; Finkelhor, 1984; Kempe and Kempe, 1984; Sgroi, 1982; SIECUS, 1984; Waiters, 1975). It was largely through the work of Kee MacFarlane at the National Center on Children Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) that the problem was documented enough to secure federal dollars that opened school doors to prevention programs. Today there are sexual abuse prevention programs in every state and in many other countries (Plummer, 1986:3). In order to reach as many children as possible, attempts have been made to incorporate child sexual abuse prevention programs into educational systems at all levels, as well as target special groups such as the physically or emotionally handicapped--e.g., Preventing Sexual Abuse of Persons with Disabilities (O'Day, 1983), Minnesota Program For Victims of Sexual Assault or Incest: Confronting The Silent Crime (Muldoon, 1980). These programs range from very short one-session interventions to complete curriculums. Hazzard et al. (1990) offer several reasons why schools are ideal sites for implementing sexual abuse prevention programs. First, the average age of victims at the onset of abuse is between 8-12 years; second, schools have large populations of children and can offer ongoing prevention programs rather than just single-session interventions; third, the primary function of schools is education; and, fourth, teachers are frequently the persons to whom children first disclose abuse. During the last seven to eight years research that evaluates the success of these programs has increased (for reviews see Araji and Tucker, 1987; Binder and McNiel, 1987; Wurtele, 1987; Wurtele et al., 1987). This is the primary focus of the present paper. Specifically, the objectives are to: 1) briefly describe a K-6th grade child sexual abuse curriculum used in a large Northwestern municipality school; 2) determine gains in knowledge and development of desired attitudes in K-6th graders after exposure to the prevention curriculum; 3) examine the effects of g e n d e r and school socioeconomic status on students' knowledge and learning of prevention concepts; and 4) examine teachers' attitudes toward implementing a sexual abuse prevention curriculum. Completion of these objectives allow us to compare our findings with previous research but also to extend previous studies. We accomplish the latter by: 1) including within one study an evaluation of a curriculum across 7 grades rather than just one or several and with a large sample (N = 1,361); 2) include an assessment of reactions to the curriculum by teachers who administer it; and 3) examine the effects of the demographic variables of gender and school social class on learning. Many previous studies do not consider the influence of demographic variables other than gender or
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age. Some studies describe sample characteristics that include social class, but do not examine the effects of these on outcome objectives (e.g., Binder and McNiel, 1987).
THEORETICAL RATIONALE
While there are varying opinions about what prevention education is (see Plummer, 1986:3-5), the present study was guided primarily by theoretical ideas from developmental psychology, social psychology, sociology, and prevention education. Borrowing from the classic triad of prevention which includes tertiary, secondary, and primary prevention (Caplan, 1964), child sexual abuse prevention educators have focused on the latter. Here the emphasis is on reducing prevalence rates by teaching children how to protect themselves from becoming victims of sexual abuse and/or if in an abusive situation, to prevent further abuse. In comparison, secondary and tertiary prevention focus more on the treatment end of the continuum. Further, the target population in child sexual abuse prevention programs is the victim (Araji, 1989:217). These programs follow what is frequently referred to as a "victim-advocacy" model (for a discussion see Araji, 1989:217-229). The theoretical idea behind this model is that victims need to be empowered so they can protect themselves from becoming victims or continuing to be victimized by older and/or more powerful perpetrators (Araji, 1989:222-223). While this model is associated with feminist theory, programs have been developed by various groups such as educators, police departments, churches, social service agencies, and schools. However, Araji (1989) concludes after a review of programs, that most are based on the victim-advocacy model and use some or all of the following concepts. 1. My Body is Mine. This concept teaches children that they own and have control of their bodies. 2. Touch. The "touch" concept focuses on teaching differences between aggressive, sexual, and appropriate touching. 3. Saying "NO". This idea follows from No. 1 and teaches children that they have the right to say "NO" to inappropriate touching. 4. Secrets. Because secrets are used by perpetrators to prevent children from telling about the abuse, children are instructed to differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate secrets. 5. Tricks. The purpose of this concept is to make children aware of tricks that are used to involve them in abusive situations.
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6. Get Away and Tell~Networking. Here children are encouraged to get help and tell if they think they are in an unsafe situation or being abused. 7. Not Only Strangers. This is one of the most important, yet hardest concepts to talk about. It involves disspelling myths about who commits sexual abuse. 8. Trust Your Feelings. Here children are encouraged to trust their intuition about safe and unsafe situations. 9. Victim Not At Fault. This concept refers to teaching children to place the blame on the perpetrator. They are taught that they, as victims, are not at fault. 10. Both Males and Females Can be Victims. Given statistics that place both young boys and girls at risk, children are instructed that all children can be victims--not just girls. In designing the curriculum and evaluation tools for this study we considered, first, children's cognitive levels of development (borrowing from developmental psychology); and, second, the idea of empowering children as a way of protecting themselves from sexual abuse (borrowing from feminist sociology). These ideas, combined with a review of previous prevention program materials guided the development of program content. In addition, research from the area of social psychology that has evaluated the effects of the experimenter on treatment outcomes prompted us to design a survey for teachers who had taught the prevention curriculum and administered the evaluation tools. Furthermore, we borrowed from sociological theories that predict variation in behaviors by demographic variables such as social class and gender.
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: "TEACHING ABOUT TOUCHING" AND TEACHER TRAINING--THE K-6 CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE PREVENTION CURRICULUM "Teaching About Touching" was developed in 1985-86 as a result of community pressure that was fueled by an increasing public awareness of child sexual abuse. The Anchorage School District responded to the pressure by deciding to initiate a K-6 curriculum that focused on preventing child sexual abuse. The district director of the health curriculum formed a team that was made up of herself, one primary teacher, one intermediate teacher, a school nurse from the district and the senior author of the present paper as a consultant. The team reviewed all major child sexual abuse prevention programs being used in the United States. Guided by the pre-
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vionsly discussed theory, the program review and the District's needs, a curriculum was developed in which all ten concepts previously discussed were utilized. The K-6 curriculum was referred to as a "personal safety program". Lessons developed for kindergarten focused on teaching children to correctly identify their body parts and comfortable, uncomfortable, and confusing touches. In the first grade, students were taught to recognize the above touches and appropriate responses to them. They also reviewed the correct names and locations of all body parts. The second grade lessons focused on identifying unsafe situations, learning to act assertively, to say "No" assertively, to get away from unsafe situations and to keep telling others about unsafe situations until someone believes and helps them. Fourth grade students demonstrated through activities such as "Say 'No' Bingo", that they understood their right to say "No" to unsafe touches and situations. They also were taught how to react appropriately to various situations involving strangers and acquaintances. In the fifth grade, students viewed the film "Better Safe Than Sorry" (Part II) and then through discussions demonstrated their ability to recognize potentially dangerous situations involving relatives, friends, neighbors and other adults they knew. They also demonstrated their ability to respond appropriately to questions regarding touching problems. Sixth grader lessons involved the use of the filmstrip "Child Sexual Abuse--A Solution". The filmstrip and discussions focused on appropriate responses to dangerous situations and learning about alternative courses of action in response to a variety of dangerous situations--e.g., hitchhiking. At each grade level previous concepts were reviewed as well as the introduction of new material and situations. Activities to accompany lessons included such things as the use of anatomically correct dolls, labeling body parts on pictures of male and female children, listening center activities, games, crossword puzzles, worksheets and role playing activities. The kindergarten, modified kindergarten, and first grade curriculum included two 30-minute lessons plus one activity such as playing with puppets to demonstrate comfortable and uncomfortable touches. The second grade program included two 30-minute lessons plus two activities. The third and fourth grades had two 45-minute sessions plus one activity, and the fifth and sixth grades included two 1-hour sessions plus one activity. The "Teaching about Touching" curriculum was implemented in 198889 in 30 of the 54 elementary schools of the district. Some of the schools had participated in the initial pilot testing of the curriculum. Schools were not given the choice of participating since the curriculum was being implemented throughout the school district. However, some of the schools had volunteered to participate in the first phase of the implementation.
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Preparing the Teachers All teachers were strongly encouraged to participate in in-service training sessions before teaching the material. Training consisted of an approximately 30-minute presentation on the curriculum manual and a response kit that included such things as audio and visual material, anatomically correct dolls, and supplementary materials. The training sessions were usually presented by the school nurse or by teachers in the school who had successfully taught the curriculum during an initial field test and were comfortable with it. Tune was allowed for questions and teachers were made aware that the trainer would team teach at least the first lesson with them if they felt uncomfortable with the subject and/or curriculum materials. Teachers were also informed that the presenter or other experienced teachers would be available as sources of help throughout the year. Each school was provided with a kit that included anatomically correct dolls, videos, filmstrips, and audio tapes to be used in teaching the curriculum. A teacher's resource manual was provided which included background information concerning the role of the teacher, basic information to familiarize the teacher with the development of the field of child sexual abuse prevention, ways to assess presenters' and children's comfort levels, a discussion of appropriate classroom size, student participation, handling a victim in the group, and state statutes related to child abuse. The manual also included a glossary of terms and indicators of sexual abuse, along with other information. Letters to parents were provided and were to be sent home one week before instruction commenced. The letter informed parents that the curriculum would be taught, and that they were welcome to preview the material prior to this time.
SAMPLE AND METHODS
Participating Students Classroom students, K-6, were randomly selected to participate in evaluating the extent to which learning occurred. Using a table of random numbers and an alphabetical list of schools, students from each grade level were selected until a minimum of 500 students were represented at each grade. This number represented the sample size that the district had predetermined would be representative of each grade. Only students who had taken both the pre-tests and post-tests were included in the final sample. This resulted in a total sample of 1,361 stu-
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dents, with the sixth grade having the lowest number represented (N -112) and the second grade having the highest number (N - 248). The 500 student per grade target was not reached because of higher than expected student mobility, a delay in the distribution of the tests and limited cooperation from some teachers. Hence, the sample may underrepresent the actual grade population--a limitation of the study. Male and female students were represented about equally with respect to gender--48% male, 52% female. School socioeconomic status was ascertained by determining the percentage of students applying for the free lunch program in each school, an indicator the school district had found reliable in the past. Students from schools with 10% or less of the school population requesting free lunches over the year were labeled as the high socioeconomic group, while students coming from schools with 40% or more requesting free school lunches were labeled as the low socioeconomic group. The total sample size for these groups was 767. Of these, 387 fell into the lower socioeconomic group while 380 qualified for the higher socioeconomic group. Unfortunately, as it was found that all third grade students fell into the lower socioeconomic group (N = 48), and all fifth graders were from the higher group (N = 65); these two grades were not considered in the socioeconomic analysis. Participating Teachers Teachers were asked to respond to a lesson evaluation survey which was mailed to them at the end of the school year. About one third (N = 197) of the 600 teachers completed and returned the 20 item evaluation survey. The breakdown of teachers and sample percentage by grade level were: K = 20 (10%); first grade = 29 (15%); second grade = 32 (16%); third grade = 26 (13%); fourth grade = 29 (15%); fifth grade = 35 (18%); sixth grade = 19 (10%); and other staff = 7 (4%). About one half (N = 101) who responded to the survey of the teacher had attended one in-service training session before teaching their lessons, and 22% (N = 43) had attended two sessions. Five percent indicated that they had attended 3-7 training sessions on sexual abuse. Interestingly, 23% (44) indicated they had not attended any training session before teaching lessons. Procedures and Evaluation Tools Each of the 30 schools in the pilot program were assigned a designated period during the school year to teach the sexual abuse prevention cur-
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riculum. Prior to teaching the lessons teachers administered a pre-test to the students. The curriculum material previously described was then presented and post-tests were to be conducted two weeks after completion of the lessons. Two sets of curriculum evaluation instruments were developed. One set was used to measure students' pre- and post-test knowledge. This set included seven evaluation instruments designed to determine learning of the program concepts covered at each grade level. Following the theoretical rationale, grade level instruments are of different lengths, have different formats, and test different content. Knowledge tests were constructed by the first author. The instruments were then refined by the third author, a specialist in test construction. Teachers at each grade level, school nurses and principals reviewed the instruments to assure that there was content validity, language and activities appropriate for each grade level, and understandable instructions. Instruments were then pre-tested with groups of students to assure that the students understood the test items, were able to follow directions, and give appropriate answers which could be reliably scored. Instruments are of the pen-and-pencil type and include from 13 to 19 questions. The second set of survey instruments were developed to record the assessment of the curriculum and teacher training by teachers and curriculum presenters. This 20-item evaluation tool focused on assessing such areas as teachers' comfort level with the curriculum, their assessment of the clarity of lessons, strengths and weaknesses of the curriculum, and adequacy of specific elements of the training.
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS SPSS version 4.0 was used to process all data on the school district VAX computer system (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, 1988). Data entry was done directly from teacher surveys and student pre- and post-tests. Separate comparisons were done since curriculum, test content and test format differed from grade to grade. Analysis of variance was utilized to explore differences which might exist between male and female students on pre- and post-test measures. Paired t-tests were also used to determine if there were any significant pre-test, post-test differences by the school's socioeconomic level. Teachers were surveyed at the end of the school year and surveys were collected by the school district assessment and evaluation department. Frequency distributions were prepared to summarize
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Table 1. Personal Safety Pre-Test--Post-Test Results, Paired t-tests (N = 1,361) Grade
Number
Pre-test Mean Score
Post-test Mean Score
Value
Mean Score Gain
K 1 2 3 4 5 6
184 199 248 213 217 188 112
5.5 6.5 9.6 12.6 15.1 11.2 9.5
7.5 8.5 11.5 14.2 16.4 13.5 11.5
8.31 13.32 12.89 10.56 9.31 11.36 9.11
2.0* 2.0* 1.9" 1.6" 1.3' 2.3* 2.0*
Total N -- 1361 *Mean gain is statistically significant at the .001 level, N-1 degrees of freedom.
teacher/presenter assessments of curriculum material and the value of teacher training.
FINDINGS As can be seen from Table 1, the paired t-tests results indicate that gains in knowledge ranged from a mean score increase of 1.3 for the fourth grade to a 2.3 mean score increase in the fifth grade. The increase in the amount of learning that occurred from pre-test to post-test were statistically significant for all grades. Analysis of variance was utilized to determine if there were any significant gender variations within grades. Considering all grades, gender did not seem to be an important factor in determining what students knew before they were exposed to the prevention curriculum or how much they learned. The only grade where statistically significant difference was found was the fourth grade. At this grade level, females as compared to males had significantly higher mean scores on the pre-test ( ~ s = 15.5 and 14.6) and post-test (~"s = 16.9 and 16.0), as well as a significantly greater mean score gain (l.4 and 1.3 mean gain). All "F" scores were significant at the .05 level. Paired t-tests were used to determine whether school socioeconomic status was associated with learning. Of the grades considered, K, 1, 2, 4, and 6, the only one that showed a significant level was grade six. The mean gain for the lower socioeconomic group was 2.15, while the mean gain for the higher socioeconomic was 1.10. The major reason for this difference was that the lower economic group had a lower mean pre-test score (7.81) than the higher socioeconomic group (9.10).
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Table 2. Questions Asked of Presenters with Accompanying Responses (At = 197)
Questions 1. Did you feel comfortable teaching the lessons? If no, tell us what we could do to increase your comfort level.
Yes
No
Percent of ,,yes,, Responses
163
22
88%
2.
Were the lesson procedures clearly stated and easily followed? If no, please suggest changes.
190
2
99%
3.
Did the le,~suns match the stated objective(s)? If no, please suggest changes.
180
0
100%
4.
Was/~ere the objective(s) appropriate for your students?
179
4
98%
5.
Were your students able to obtain the objectives? If no, please tell us what changes you would recommend. Please describe the behavior you looked for to signify attainment if other than the pre/post tests.
178
4
97%
6.
Were your students confused by the instructions provided in the lessons? If yes, what did you do to clear up the confusion?
18
169
90%
7.
Did you extend or supplement the lessons? If yes, please share your extensions or supplements.
91
95
49%
32
157
17%
72
99
40%
10. Are there additional lessons you used? If yes, please sharre additional lessons or attach a copies.
21
149
12%
11.
Do you have plans to follow-up or review the instruction you provided in teaching the lessons? If yes, please share your plans.
50
103
33%
12.
Do you feel through the training you were well-prepared and comfortable with the information provided?
80
10
89%
13.
Did material presented in the trainers' in-service allow you to feel prepared to train others to deal with sexual abuse of children?
53
34
61%
14. After participating in the trainers' in-service, did you feel ready to teach the staff in your school?
30
43
41%
15.
66
6
92%
8. Have you had any parent reactions to the lessons? If yes, please share 9.
Are the children talking about the information they received in the lessons? If yes, please share the list of their comments.
Did staff in your school respond positively to the lessons and discussion of child sexual abuse prevention?
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Ouastions 16. Do you feel you were able to provide the information necessary to help others teach the child sexual abuse prevention lessons? If no, please suggest ways the content could be delivered to you. 17. Do you feel that the visual materials were appropriate for the lessons? If no, please explain. 18. Did any children report being sexually abused during or after you taught the lessons? If yes,
Yes 46
No 17
"Yes" Responses 73%
166
7
96%
17
170
9%
what action was taken?
*Percentages are based on number of teachers responding to each question, not on total that returned surveys--i.e., 197.1. Table 2 represents a distribution of teachers' responses to questions asked about the prevention curriculum. As can be seen, evaluations for the 197 teachers who responded were extremely positive. The majority of teachers felt comfortable teaching the lessons, thought the lessons in the manual were clearly presented, believed the lessons matched the stated program objectives and were appropriate for the students, felt that the students were able to attain the objectives of the program (Q. 1-16) and that the visual material was appropriate for the lessons (Q-17). Most teachers thought that the training they had received was valuable (Q-12), although many believed it would not be adequate to allow them to train teachers/staff in their schools (Q. 13-14). The majority of teachers did not add any lessons to the existing program material (Q-10), nor did they have plans to follow-up or review the material they had presented (Q-11). However, almost half of the respondents did extend or supplement existing lessons (Q-7). With respect to children following through on what had been presented, almost 40% of the teachers reported hearing children talk about the information they had received in the lessons (Q-9), and 17 teachers (9%) indicated that they had children disclose sexual abuse either during or after the lessons were taught (Q-18).
DISCUSSION Kindergarten through sixth grade students in this study benefited from participation in the comprehensive sexual abuse prevention curriculum as
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post-test scores showed statistically significant increases over pre-test scores at all grade levels. This finding indicates that new learning occurred at each grade level and is an indication that the curriculum is meeting its objectives. Findings also indicate that mean gains on post-test scores do not appear to be related to gender and school socioeconomic level. Only one of the K-6 grades posted significant gender difference and only one of the five grades showed a significant socioeconomic difference. While the findings relative to gender concur with previous studies (e.g., Conte et al., 1984), we believe additional research in the socioeconomic area is needed due to our use of a somewhat unconventional socioeconomic measure. While it is encouraging to find significant increases in knowledge occurring at all grade levels, this study does have limited assessment of the behavioral dimension. For example, we are aware that the majority of students know they have the right to say "No" to touches and situations they perceive as unsafe. What we don't know and can't measure is whether in real life dangerous situations the child could look an adult in the eye and say "No". One encouraging behavioral finding, however, was that seventeen teachers reported having children disclose victimization during and after the curriculum presentations. The district has also witnessed an increase in disclosures, at all levels, since introduction of the prevention curriculum. In fact, three teachers within the past three years have been reported and/or formally charged with sexual abuse of students. Several have been tried in the courts and all were dismissed from their teaching positions. Teachers' evaluations of the curriculum were extremely positive. Most teachers felt comfortable teaching the material, thought the content was appropriate for each grade level, believed the manual clearly presented the material and met the overall program objectives. Most also thought that the training they had received prior to teaching the curriculum was valuable, although many felt more training would be needed before they could train others in their schools. Most teachers did not plan to follow-up or review the material they had presented. This finding was discouraging, although understandable, given all the curriculum material that teachers are requested to teach in addition to the basic subjects. Continued monitoring of teachers is needed as the 197 who responded represents only about one third of those who participated in teaching the curriculum.4However, we are confident that the responses would generally 4When this finding was followed-up, it was discovered that teachers new to the district or to schools, sometimes never received training if they arrived prior to programs being implemented into the district. This was increasingly creating problems such as the one identified herein. Close monitoring of the "training before teaching" phase is warranted.
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follow the pattern established in this study, as those who are most dissatisfied with programs also tend to be those most vocal. Finally, we are aware that there are some researchers (e.g., see Rappucci and Haugaard, 1989) who suggest prevention programs may cause more harm than good. Our reviews, however, generally failed to identify any negative unanticipated consequences of prevention training (for a review see Conte, 1991, pp. 9-11). Most recent research shows positive results from these prevention programs extending beyond those measured in this study. For example, Binder and McNiel (1987) found a decrease in 3 of 18 behavior problems recorded by parents' ratings after prevention programs were taught to a sample of 5 through 12-year-olds, and no significant increases were found in the children's anxiety levels. These researchers also found that children often reported feeling more confident and "safer" as a result of prevention programs. Wurtele et al. (1987) found no increases in children's fears reported by either the children or the parents. They even noted decreases in some behavior problems.
SUMMARY AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH In summary, the major contributions of this project are, first, the development, piloting, and institutionalization of a K-6 child sexual abuse prevention curriculum with accompanying teacher training materials and student and teacher evaluation instruments. Second, data analyses demonstrates that the curriculum leads to significant learning between pre-tests and post-tests at all grade levels--learning that does not appear to be mediated by gender and/or school socioeconomic status. Third, teachers' feedback indicates an overall satisfaction with the curriculum and training. Fourth, presentation of the curriculum materials and training appears to have increased teachers' awareness of sexual abuse and has led to increased disclosures of abuse by students. Fifth, this study unlike most other examining the effects the demographics of gender and social class. The next phases of our research project include developing reliability coefficients for student evaluation instruments and updating the curriculum to focus on students who may already be involved as offenders in addition to being victimized. This is an emerging area of concern (see Gil and Johnson, 1992). On the student surveys we plan to ask for ethnic status as well as gender, so that we can determine if there are learning and retention differences by ethnic group. We have also developed an instrument to gather teachers' assessments of state agency responses concerning the follow-up of reported child sexual abuse disclosures. Some teachers have voiced concern about whether agencies follow-up once they (teachers) have
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reported disclosures. This concern is not only anxiety producing for teachers, but raises a number of ethical issues related to children being instructed to disclose abuse if agency follow-ups are not taking place. While we did not include control groups in this study, an extensive review of program evaluation studies by the senior author (Araji, 1985) found that, overall, these programs do produce significantly more knowledge in treatment as compared to control groups. In addition, previous research conducted by the same author (Araji and Tucker, 1987) where control groups were used obtained the same results. In conclusion, while results of this project have been positive and encouraging, recent developments lead us to be concerned. Cuts in federal and state funding for educational projects are making it increasingly difficult to obtain funds for the monitoring, updating, and evaluation of projects once they lose their pilot status and become part of the regular curriculum. The implication of this over the long term is that effective and quality programs can be developed, but once they are institutionalized the quality can deteriorate due to lack of funds. This concerns those who are involved with finding solutions to social problems that affect families and schools. Research that determines how widespread this problem is and what strategies schools and other agencies are developing to prevent the loss of these important programs is, in addition to those mentioned above, a worthwhile direction for future research.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks are extended to Carlette Ivory, Administrative Secretary, University of Alaska Anchorage, Department of Sociology, for typing this manuscript and to Beverli Thomas, UAA Exchange Student for assistance with various tasks associated with the final draft.
REFERENCES Araji, S. K. (1989). The effects of advocates on prevention. In N. Cathcart Barker (Ed.), Child abuse and neglect, (pp. 217-229). Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company. Araji, S. K. (1985). Child physical and sexual abuse: Focus on prevention. Paper presented at U.S.-Sweden Physical and Sexual Abuse Conference, Stockholm, Sweden. Araji, S. K., & Tucker, S. (1987). Child sexual abuse prevention programs: An evaluation study. Paper presented at the Pacific Sociological Association Meeting, Eugene, Oregon. Binder, R. L, & McNiel, D. E. (1987). Evaluation of a school-based sexual abuse prevention program: Cognitive and emotional effects. Child Abuse & Neglect. 11, 497-506.
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Bucldey, J. (1986). Legal intervention and reforms in child sexual abuse cases. Mary Nelson and Kay Clark (Eds.), Preventing Child Sexual Abuse, (pp. 56-66). Santa Cruz, CA: Network Publications. Burgess, A., Groth, N., Holmstrom, L, & Sgroi, S. (1983). Sexual assault of children and adolescents. Le~fington, MA: Lexington Books. Cohn, A: H., & Daro, D. (1987). Is treatment too late: What ten years of evaluative research tells us. Child Abuse & Neglec~ 11, 433-442. Conte, J. R. (1991). Child sexual abuse: Looking backward and forward. Michael Quinn Patton (Ed.), Family ~__~o! abuse: Frontline research and evaluation, (pp. 3-22). Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications. Cronbach, L J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychomet~a, 15, 297-334. Dempster, H. L., & Roberts, J. (1991). Child sexual abuse research: A methodological quagmire. Child Abuse & Neglec~ 5, 593-595. Finkeihor, D. (1979). Se~:_!ly victimized children. New York, NY: Free Press. Finkelhor, D. (1984). Child sexual abuse: New theory and research. New York, NY: Free Press. Finkelhor, D., & Araji, S. IC (1986). Explanations of pedophilia: A four-factor model. The Journal of Sex Researcl~ 22, 145-161. Garbarino, J. (1986). Can we measure success in preventing child abuse? Issues in policy, programming and research. Child Abuse & Neglec~ 10, 143-156. Gil, E. & Johnson, T. C. (1992). Assessment and treatment of sexual~d children and children who molest. Rockviile, MD: Launch Press. Hazzard, A. P., Keemeier, C. P., & Webb, C. (1990). Teacher versus expert presentations of sexual abuse prevention program. Journal of Interpersonal V'tolence, 5, 23-26. Herman, J. (1981). Father-daughter incest. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hibbard, R. A., Serwint, J. & Connolly, M. (1987). Educational program on evaluation of alleged abuse victims. Child Abuse & Neglect, 15, 513-519. Kempe, C. H. & Kempe, R. S. (1978). The common secret: Sexual abuse of children and adolescents. New York, NY: W. H. Freeman and Company. Kraizer, S. K. (1986). Rethinking prevention. Child Abuse & Neglect, 10, 259-261. Morgan, S. R. (1984). Counseling with teachers on the sexual acting-out of disturbed children. Psychology in the Schools, 21, 234-243. Muidoon, L. (1980). Incest: Confronting the silent crime. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Program for Victims of Sexual Assault, Documents Division. O'Day, et al. (1983). Preventing sexual abuse of persons with disabilities: A curriculum for hearing impaired Physically disabled, blind and mentally retarded students. St. Paul, MN: State Documents Center. Oetter, D. (1991). Personal Communications, January 23rd. Peters, S. D., Wyatt, G. E., & Finkelhor, D. (1986). Prevalence. D. Finkelhor, S. Araji, L Baron, A. Browne, S. D. Peters, and G. E. Wyatt (Eds.), Sourcebook on child sexual abuse, (pp. 15-49). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Rush, F. (1980). The best kept secret: Sexual abuse of children. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Russell, D. (1982). Rape. child sexual abuse, sexual harassment in the Workplace: An analysis of the prevalence, causes and recommended solutions. Final report for the California Commission of Crime Control and Violence Prevention. Sex Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS). (1984, September). Special child sexual abuse issue. New York, NY: School of Education, New York University. Sgroi, S. (1982). Handbook of clinical intervention in child sexual abuse. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. (1988). SPSS-X user's guide (3rd ed.). Chicago, IL: SPSS, Inc. Waiters, D. (1975). Physical and sexual abuse of children. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
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Wolfe, D. A., MacPherson, T., Blount, R., & Wolfe, V. V. (1986). Evaluation of a brief intervention for educating school children in awareness of physical and sexual abuse. Ch//d Abuse & Neglec~ 10, 85-92. Wurtele, S. (1987). School based sexual abuse prevention programs: A review. Ch//d Abuse & N ~ c ~ 11(4), 483-495. Wurtele, S., Miller-Perrin, C., Kondrick, P., Morris, D., & Bratcher, D. (1987). Development of an instrument to measure children's responses to sexual abuse prevention programs.
Unpublished manuscript, Washington State University. Pullman, WA.
Child Sexual Abuse: Description and Evaluation of a K-6 Prevention Curriculum Sharon K. Araji, 1~3 Ray Fenton, 2 and Tom Straugh 2
This article describes and evaluates a K-6 child sexual abuse prevention curriculum that was piloted in a large northwestern school district 1986-89. Paired t-tests using pre-test and post-test scores from a random sample of 1,391 K-6 students indicates that significant learning occurred at all grade levels. Analysis of variance results suggest that, overall, learning is not related to students' gender or to the school's socioeconomic level. Responses by 197 teachers concerning their evaluations of curriculum materials and training were positive. Study limitations and future research plans and needs are discussed. KEY WORDS: child sexual abuse prevention; sex education; child sexual abuse program evaluation.
INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Child sexual abuse was recognized as a major social problem in the late 1970's when official reports alerted feminists (Herman, 1981, Rush, 1980), professionals in the area of family relations, researchers (Finkelhor, 1979; Kempe and Kempe, 1984), and the public to the problem (Araji, 1985). This attention led to increased activity involving documentation of the extent of child sexual abuse, attention to definitional and legal problems (Buckley, 1986; Russell, 1982), explanations of why such abusive behavior Presented at American Educational Research Association Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, April, 1994. lDr. Araji is a Full Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alaska
Anchorage (UAA). 2Drs. Fenton and Straugh are Research Associates in the Evaluation and Assessment Department at the AnchorageSchool District. 3Address correspondence and reprint requests to Sharon K. Araji, Ph.D., Department of Sociology,UniversityAlaska Anchorage,3211 ProvidenceDrive, Anchorage, AK 99508. 149 O 1995 Human SciencesPress,Inc..
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occurs, and an increased development of treatment and/or prevention techniques (Burgess et al., 1983; Finkelhor, 1984; Kempe and Kempe, 1984; Sgroi, 1982; SIECUS, 1984; Waiters, 1975). It was largely through the work of Kee MacFarlane at the National Center on Children Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) that the problem was documented enough to secure federal dollars that opened school doors to prevention programs. Today there are sexual abuse prevention programs in every state and in many other countries (Plummer, 1986:3). In order to reach as many children as possible, attempts have been made to incorporate child sexual abuse prevention programs into educational systems at all levels, as well as target special groups such as the physically or emotionally handicapped--e.g., Preventing Sexual Abuse of Persons with Disabilities (O'Day, 1983), Minnesota Program For Victims of Sexual Assault or Incest: Confronting The Silent Crime (Muldoon, 1980). These programs range from very short one-session interventions to complete curriculums. Hazzard et al. (1990) offer several reasons why schools are ideal sites for implementing sexual abuse prevention programs. First, the average age of victims at the onset of abuse is between 8-12 years; second, schools have large populations of children and can offer ongoing prevention programs rather than just single-session interventions; third, the primary function of schools is education; and, fourth, teachers are frequently the persons to whom children first disclose abuse. During the last seven to eight years research that evaluates the success of these programs has increased (for reviews see Araji and Tucker, 1987; Binder and McNiel, 1987; Wurtele, 1987; Wurtele et al., 1987). This is the primary focus of the present paper. Specifically, the objectives are to: 1) briefly describe a K-6th grade child sexual abuse curriculum used in a large Northwestern municipality school; 2) determine gains in knowledge and development of desired attitudes in K-6th graders after exposure to the prevention curriculum; 3) examine the effects of g e n d e r and school socioeconomic status on students' knowledge and learning of prevention concepts; and 4) examine teachers' attitudes toward implementing a sexual abuse prevention curriculum. Completion of these objectives allow us to compare our findings with previous research but also to extend previous studies. We accomplish the latter by: 1) including within one study an evaluation of a curriculum across 7 grades rather than just one or several and with a large sample (N = 1,361); 2) include an assessment of reactions to the curriculum by teachers who administer it; and 3) examine the effects of the demographic variables of gender and school social class on learning. Many previous studies do not consider the influence of demographic variables other than gender or
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age. Some studies describe sample characteristics that include social class, but do not examine the effects of these on outcome objectives (e.g., Binder and McNiel, 1987).
THEORETICAL RATIONALE
While there are varying opinions about what prevention education is (see Plummer, 1986:3-5), the present study was guided primarily by theoretical ideas from developmental psychology, social psychology, sociology, and prevention education. Borrowing from the classic triad of prevention which includes tertiary, secondary, and primary prevention (Caplan, 1964), child sexual abuse prevention educators have focused on the latter. Here the emphasis is on reducing prevalence rates by teaching children how to protect themselves from becoming victims of sexual abuse and/or if in an abusive situation, to prevent further abuse. In comparison, secondary and tertiary prevention focus more on the treatment end of the continuum. Further, the target population in child sexual abuse prevention programs is the victim (Araji, 1989:217). These programs follow what is frequently referred to as a "victim-advocacy" model (for a discussion see Araji, 1989:217-229). The theoretical idea behind this model is that victims need to be empowered so they can protect themselves from becoming victims or continuing to be victimized by older and/or more powerful perpetrators (Araji, 1989:222-223). While this model is associated with feminist theory, programs have been developed by various groups such as educators, police departments, churches, social service agencies, and schools. However, Araji (1989) concludes after a review of programs, that most are based on the victim-advocacy model and use some or all of the following concepts. 1. My Body is Mine. This concept teaches children that they own and have control of their bodies. 2. Touch. The "touch" concept focuses on teaching differences between aggressive, sexual, and appropriate touching. 3. Saying "NO". This idea follows from No. 1 and teaches children that they have the right to say "NO" to inappropriate touching. 4. Secrets. Because secrets are used by perpetrators to prevent children from telling about the abuse, children are instructed to differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate secrets. 5. Tricks. The purpose of this concept is to make children aware of tricks that are used to involve them in abusive situations.
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6. Get Away and Tell~Networking. Here children are encouraged to get help and tell if they think they are in an unsafe situation or being abused. 7. Not Only Strangers. This is one of the most important, yet hardest concepts to talk about. It involves disspelling myths about who commits sexual abuse. 8. Trust Your Feelings. Here children are encouraged to trust their intuition about safe and unsafe situations. 9. Victim Not At Fault. This concept refers to teaching children to place the blame on the perpetrator. They are taught that they, as victims, are not at fault. 10. Both Males and Females Can be Victims. Given statistics that place both young boys and girls at risk, children are instructed that all children can be victims--not just girls. In designing the curriculum and evaluation tools for this study we considered, first, children's cognitive levels of development (borrowing from developmental psychology); and, second, the idea of empowering children as a way of protecting themselves from sexual abuse (borrowing from feminist sociology). These ideas, combined with a review of previous prevention program materials guided the development of program content. In addition, research from the area of social psychology that has evaluated the effects of the experimenter on treatment outcomes prompted us to design a survey for teachers who had taught the prevention curriculum and administered the evaluation tools. Furthermore, we borrowed from sociological theories that predict variation in behaviors by demographic variables such as social class and gender.
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: "TEACHING ABOUT TOUCHING" AND TEACHER TRAINING--THE K-6 CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE PREVENTION CURRICULUM "Teaching About Touching" was developed in 1985-86 as a result of community pressure that was fueled by an increasing public awareness of child sexual abuse. The Anchorage School District responded to the pressure by deciding to initiate a K-6 curriculum that focused on preventing child sexual abuse. The district director of the health curriculum formed a team that was made up of herself, one primary teacher, one intermediate teacher, a school nurse from the district and the senior author of the present paper as a consultant. The team reviewed all major child sexual abuse prevention programs being used in the United States. Guided by the pre-
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vionsly discussed theory, the program review and the District's needs, a curriculum was developed in which all ten concepts previously discussed were utilized. The K-6 curriculum was referred to as a "personal safety program". Lessons developed for kindergarten focused on teaching children to correctly identify their body parts and comfortable, uncomfortable, and confusing touches. In the first grade, students were taught to recognize the above touches and appropriate responses to them. They also reviewed the correct names and locations of all body parts. The second grade lessons focused on identifying unsafe situations, learning to act assertively, to say "No" assertively, to get away from unsafe situations and to keep telling others about unsafe situations until someone believes and helps them. Fourth grade students demonstrated through activities such as "Say 'No' Bingo", that they understood their right to say "No" to unsafe touches and situations. They also were taught how to react appropriately to various situations involving strangers and acquaintances. In the fifth grade, students viewed the film "Better Safe Than Sorry" (Part II) and then through discussions demonstrated their ability to recognize potentially dangerous situations involving relatives, friends, neighbors and other adults they knew. They also demonstrated their ability to respond appropriately to questions regarding touching problems. Sixth grader lessons involved the use of the filmstrip "Child Sexual Abuse--A Solution". The filmstrip and discussions focused on appropriate responses to dangerous situations and learning about alternative courses of action in response to a variety of dangerous situations--e.g., hitchhiking. At each grade level previous concepts were reviewed as well as the introduction of new material and situations. Activities to accompany lessons included such things as the use of anatomically correct dolls, labeling body parts on pictures of male and female children, listening center activities, games, crossword puzzles, worksheets and role playing activities. The kindergarten, modified kindergarten, and first grade curriculum included two 30-minute lessons plus one activity such as playing with puppets to demonstrate comfortable and uncomfortable touches. The second grade program included two 30-minute lessons plus two activities. The third and fourth grades had two 45-minute sessions plus one activity, and the fifth and sixth grades included two 1-hour sessions plus one activity. The "Teaching about Touching" curriculum was implemented in 198889 in 30 of the 54 elementary schools of the district. Some of the schools had participated in the initial pilot testing of the curriculum. Schools were not given the choice of participating since the curriculum was being implemented throughout the school district. However, some of the schools had volunteered to participate in the first phase of the implementation.
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Preparing the Teachers All teachers were strongly encouraged to participate in in-service training sessions before teaching the material. Training consisted of an approximately 30-minute presentation on the curriculum manual and a response kit that included such things as audio and visual material, anatomically correct dolls, and supplementary materials. The training sessions were usually presented by the school nurse or by teachers in the school who had successfully taught the curriculum during an initial field test and were comfortable with it. Tune was allowed for questions and teachers were made aware that the trainer would team teach at least the first lesson with them if they felt uncomfortable with the subject and/or curriculum materials. Teachers were also informed that the presenter or other experienced teachers would be available as sources of help throughout the year. Each school was provided with a kit that included anatomically correct dolls, videos, filmstrips, and audio tapes to be used in teaching the curriculum. A teacher's resource manual was provided which included background information concerning the role of the teacher, basic information to familiarize the teacher with the development of the field of child sexual abuse prevention, ways to assess presenters' and children's comfort levels, a discussion of appropriate classroom size, student participation, handling a victim in the group, and state statutes related to child abuse. The manual also included a glossary of terms and indicators of sexual abuse, along with other information. Letters to parents were provided and were to be sent home one week before instruction commenced. The letter informed parents that the curriculum would be taught, and that they were welcome to preview the material prior to this time.
SAMPLE AND METHODS
Participating Students Classroom students, K-6, were randomly selected to participate in evaluating the extent to which learning occurred. Using a table of random numbers and an alphabetical list of schools, students from each grade level were selected until a minimum of 500 students were represented at each grade. This number represented the sample size that the district had predetermined would be representative of each grade. Only students who had taken both the pre-tests and post-tests were included in the final sample. This resulted in a total sample of 1,361 stu-
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155
dents, with the sixth grade having the lowest number represented (N -112) and the second grade having the highest number (N - 248). The 500 student per grade target was not reached because of higher than expected student mobility, a delay in the distribution of the tests and limited cooperation from some teachers. Hence, the sample may underrepresent the actual grade population--a limitation of the study. Male and female students were represented about equally with respect to gender--48% male, 52% female. School socioeconomic status was ascertained by determining the percentage of students applying for the free lunch program in each school, an indicator the school district had found reliable in the past. Students from schools with 10% or less of the school population requesting free lunches over the year were labeled as the high socioeconomic group, while students coming from schools with 40% or more requesting free school lunches were labeled as the low socioeconomic group. The total sample size for these groups was 767. Of these, 387 fell into the lower socioeconomic group while 380 qualified for the higher socioeconomic group. Unfortunately, as it was found that all third grade students fell into the lower socioeconomic group (N = 48), and all fifth graders were from the higher group (N = 65); these two grades were not considered in the socioeconomic analysis. Participating Teachers Teachers were asked to respond to a lesson evaluation survey which was mailed to them at the end of the school year. About one third (N = 197) of the 600 teachers completed and returned the 20 item evaluation survey. The breakdown of teachers and sample percentage by grade level were: K = 20 (10%); first grade = 29 (15%); second grade = 32 (16%); third grade = 26 (13%); fourth grade = 29 (15%); fifth grade = 35 (18%); sixth grade = 19 (10%); and other staff = 7 (4%). About one half (N = 101) who responded to the survey of the teacher had attended one in-service training session before teaching their lessons, and 22% (N = 43) had attended two sessions. Five percent indicated that they had attended 3-7 training sessions on sexual abuse. Interestingly, 23% (44) indicated they had not attended any training session before teaching lessons. Procedures and Evaluation Tools Each of the 30 schools in the pilot program were assigned a designated period during the school year to teach the sexual abuse prevention cur-
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riculum. Prior to teaching the lessons teachers administered a pre-test to the students. The curriculum material previously described was then presented and post-tests were to be conducted two weeks after completion of the lessons. Two sets of curriculum evaluation instruments were developed. One set was used to measure students' pre- and post-test knowledge. This set included seven evaluation instruments designed to determine learning of the program concepts covered at each grade level. Following the theoretical rationale, grade level instruments are of different lengths, have different formats, and test different content. Knowledge tests were constructed by the first author. The instruments were then refined by the third author, a specialist in test construction. Teachers at each grade level, school nurses and principals reviewed the instruments to assure that there was content validity, language and activities appropriate for each grade level, and understandable instructions. Instruments were then pre-tested with groups of students to assure that the students understood the test items, were able to follow directions, and give appropriate answers which could be reliably scored. Instruments are of the pen-and-pencil type and include from 13 to 19 questions. The second set of survey instruments were developed to record the assessment of the curriculum and teacher training by teachers and curriculum presenters. This 20-item evaluation tool focused on assessing such areas as teachers' comfort level with the curriculum, their assessment of the clarity of lessons, strengths and weaknesses of the curriculum, and adequacy of specific elements of the training.
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS SPSS version 4.0 was used to process all data on the school district VAX computer system (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, 1988). Data entry was done directly from teacher surveys and student pre- and post-tests. Separate comparisons were done since curriculum, test content and test format differed from grade to grade. Analysis of variance was utilized to explore differences which might exist between male and female students on pre- and post-test measures. Paired t-tests were also used to determine if there were any significant pre-test, post-test differences by the school's socioeconomic level. Teachers were surveyed at the end of the school year and surveys were collected by the school district assessment and evaluation department. Frequency distributions were prepared to summarize
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Table 1. Personal Safety Pre-Test--Post-Test Results, Paired t-tests (N = 1,361) Grade
Number
Pre-test Mean Score
Post-test Mean Score
Value
Mean Score Gain
K 1 2 3 4 5 6
184 199 248 213 217 188 112
5.5 6.5 9.6 12.6 15.1 11.2 9.5
7.5 8.5 11.5 14.2 16.4 13.5 11.5
8.31 13.32 12.89 10.56 9.31 11.36 9.11
2.0* 2.0* 1.9" 1.6" 1.3' 2.3* 2.0*
Total N -- 1361 *Mean gain is statistically significant at the .001 level, N-1 degrees of freedom.
teacher/presenter assessments of curriculum material and the value of teacher training.
FINDINGS As can be seen from Table 1, the paired t-tests results indicate that gains in knowledge ranged from a mean score increase of 1.3 for the fourth grade to a 2.3 mean score increase in the fifth grade. The increase in the amount of learning that occurred from pre-test to post-test were statistically significant for all grades. Analysis of variance was utilized to determine if there were any significant gender variations within grades. Considering all grades, gender did not seem to be an important factor in determining what students knew before they were exposed to the prevention curriculum or how much they learned. The only grade where statistically significant difference was found was the fourth grade. At this grade level, females as compared to males had significantly higher mean scores on the pre-test ( ~ s = 15.5 and 14.6) and post-test (~"s = 16.9 and 16.0), as well as a significantly greater mean score gain (l.4 and 1.3 mean gain). All "F" scores were significant at the .05 level. Paired t-tests were used to determine whether school socioeconomic status was associated with learning. Of the grades considered, K, 1, 2, 4, and 6, the only one that showed a significant level was grade six. The mean gain for the lower socioeconomic group was 2.15, while the mean gain for the higher socioeconomic was 1.10. The major reason for this difference was that the lower economic group had a lower mean pre-test score (7.81) than the higher socioeconomic group (9.10).
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15g
Table 2. Questions Asked of Presenters with Accompanying Responses (At = 197)
Questions 1. Did you feel comfortable teaching the lessons? If no, tell us what we could do to increase your comfort level.
Yes
No
Percent of ,,yes,, Responses
163
22
88%
2.
Were the lesson procedures clearly stated and easily followed? If no, please suggest changes.
190
2
99%
3.
Did the le,~suns match the stated objective(s)? If no, please suggest changes.
180
0
100%
4.
Was/~ere the objective(s) appropriate for your students?
179
4
98%
5.
Were your students able to obtain the objectives? If no, please tell us what changes you would recommend. Please describe the behavior you looked for to signify attainment if other than the pre/post tests.
178
4
97%
6.
Were your students confused by the instructions provided in the lessons? If yes, what did you do to clear up the confusion?
18
169
90%
7.
Did you extend or supplement the lessons? If yes, please share your extensions or supplements.
91
95
49%
32
157
17%
72
99
40%
10. Are there additional lessons you used? If yes, please sharre additional lessons or attach a copies.
21
149
12%
11.
Do you have plans to follow-up or review the instruction you provided in teaching the lessons? If yes, please share your plans.
50
103
33%
12.
Do you feel through the training you were well-prepared and comfortable with the information provided?
80
10
89%
13.
Did material presented in the trainers' in-service allow you to feel prepared to train others to deal with sexual abuse of children?
53
34
61%
14. After participating in the trainers' in-service, did you feel ready to teach the staff in your school?
30
43
41%
15.
66
6
92%
8. Have you had any parent reactions to the lessons? If yes, please share 9.
Are the children talking about the information they received in the lessons? If yes, please share the list of their comments.
Did staff in your school respond positively to the lessons and discussion of child sexual abuse prevention?
Child Sexual Abuse
159 Table 2. Continued Percent of
Ouastions 16. Do you feel you were able to provide the information necessary to help others teach the child sexual abuse prevention lessons? If no, please suggest ways the content could be delivered to you. 17. Do you feel that the visual materials were appropriate for the lessons? If no, please explain. 18. Did any children report being sexually abused during or after you taught the lessons? If yes,
Yes 46
No 17
"Yes" Responses 73%
166
7
96%
17
170
9%
what action was taken?
*Percentages are based on number of teachers responding to each question, not on total that returned surveys--i.e., 197.1. Table 2 represents a distribution of teachers' responses to questions asked about the prevention curriculum. As can be seen, evaluations for the 197 teachers who responded were extremely positive. The majority of teachers felt comfortable teaching the lessons, thought the lessons in the manual were clearly presented, believed the lessons matched the stated program objectives and were appropriate for the students, felt that the students were able to attain the objectives of the program (Q. 1-16) and that the visual material was appropriate for the lessons (Q-17). Most teachers thought that the training they had received was valuable (Q-12), although many believed it would not be adequate to allow them to train teachers/staff in their schools (Q. 13-14). The majority of teachers did not add any lessons to the existing program material (Q-10), nor did they have plans to follow-up or review the material they had presented (Q-11). However, almost half of the respondents did extend or supplement existing lessons (Q-7). With respect to children following through on what had been presented, almost 40% of the teachers reported hearing children talk about the information they had received in the lessons (Q-9), and 17 teachers (9%) indicated that they had children disclose sexual abuse either during or after the lessons were taught (Q-18).
DISCUSSION Kindergarten through sixth grade students in this study benefited from participation in the comprehensive sexual abuse prevention curriculum as
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post-test scores showed statistically significant increases over pre-test scores at all grade levels. This finding indicates that new learning occurred at each grade level and is an indication that the curriculum is meeting its objectives. Findings also indicate that mean gains on post-test scores do not appear to be related to gender and school socioeconomic level. Only one of the K-6 grades posted significant gender difference and only one of the five grades showed a significant socioeconomic difference. While the findings relative to gender concur with previous studies (e.g., Conte et al., 1984), we believe additional research in the socioeconomic area is needed due to our use of a somewhat unconventional socioeconomic measure. While it is encouraging to find significant increases in knowledge occurring at all grade levels, this study does have limited assessment of the behavioral dimension. For example, we are aware that the majority of students know they have the right to say "No" to touches and situations they perceive as unsafe. What we don't know and can't measure is whether in real life dangerous situations the child could look an adult in the eye and say "No". One encouraging behavioral finding, however, was that seventeen teachers reported having children disclose victimization during and after the curriculum presentations. The district has also witnessed an increase in disclosures, at all levels, since introduction of the prevention curriculum. In fact, three teachers within the past three years have been reported and/or formally charged with sexual abuse of students. Several have been tried in the courts and all were dismissed from their teaching positions. Teachers' evaluations of the curriculum were extremely positive. Most teachers felt comfortable teaching the material, thought the content was appropriate for each grade level, believed the manual clearly presented the material and met the overall program objectives. Most also thought that the training they had received prior to teaching the curriculum was valuable, although many felt more training would be needed before they could train others in their schools. Most teachers did not plan to follow-up or review the material they had presented. This finding was discouraging, although understandable, given all the curriculum material that teachers are requested to teach in addition to the basic subjects. Continued monitoring of teachers is needed as the 197 who responded represents only about one third of those who participated in teaching the curriculum.4However, we are confident that the responses would generally 4When this finding was followed-up, it was discovered that teachers new to the district or to schools, sometimes never received training if they arrived prior to programs being implemented into the district. This was increasingly creating problems such as the one identified herein. Close monitoring of the "training before teaching" phase is warranted.
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follow the pattern established in this study, as those who are most dissatisfied with programs also tend to be those most vocal. Finally, we are aware that there are some researchers (e.g., see Rappucci and Haugaard, 1989) who suggest prevention programs may cause more harm than good. Our reviews, however, generally failed to identify any negative unanticipated consequences of prevention training (for a review see Conte, 1991, pp. 9-11). Most recent research shows positive results from these prevention programs extending beyond those measured in this study. For example, Binder and McNiel (1987) found a decrease in 3 of 18 behavior problems recorded by parents' ratings after prevention programs were taught to a sample of 5 through 12-year-olds, and no significant increases were found in the children's anxiety levels. These researchers also found that children often reported feeling more confident and "safer" as a result of prevention programs. Wurtele et al. (1987) found no increases in children's fears reported by either the children or the parents. They even noted decreases in some behavior problems.
SUMMARY AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH In summary, the major contributions of this project are, first, the development, piloting, and institutionalization of a K-6 child sexual abuse prevention curriculum with accompanying teacher training materials and student and teacher evaluation instruments. Second, data analyses demonstrates that the curriculum leads to significant learning between pre-tests and post-tests at all grade levels--learning that does not appear to be mediated by gender and/or school socioeconomic status. Third, teachers' feedback indicates an overall satisfaction with the curriculum and training. Fourth, presentation of the curriculum materials and training appears to have increased teachers' awareness of sexual abuse and has led to increased disclosures of abuse by students. Fifth, this study unlike most other examining the effects the demographics of gender and social class. The next phases of our research project include developing reliability coefficients for student evaluation instruments and updating the curriculum to focus on students who may already be involved as offenders in addition to being victimized. This is an emerging area of concern (see Gil and Johnson, 1992). On the student surveys we plan to ask for ethnic status as well as gender, so that we can determine if there are learning and retention differences by ethnic group. We have also developed an instrument to gather teachers' assessments of state agency responses concerning the follow-up of reported child sexual abuse disclosures. Some teachers have voiced concern about whether agencies follow-up once they (teachers) have
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reported disclosures. This concern is not only anxiety producing for teachers, but raises a number of ethical issues related to children being instructed to disclose abuse if agency follow-ups are not taking place. While we did not include control groups in this study, an extensive review of program evaluation studies by the senior author (Araji, 1985) found that, overall, these programs do produce significantly more knowledge in treatment as compared to control groups. In addition, previous research conducted by the same author (Araji and Tucker, 1987) where control groups were used obtained the same results. In conclusion, while results of this project have been positive and encouraging, recent developments lead us to be concerned. Cuts in federal and state funding for educational projects are making it increasingly difficult to obtain funds for the monitoring, updating, and evaluation of projects once they lose their pilot status and become part of the regular curriculum. The implication of this over the long term is that effective and quality programs can be developed, but once they are institutionalized the quality can deteriorate due to lack of funds. This concerns those who are involved with finding solutions to social problems that affect families and schools. Research that determines how widespread this problem is and what strategies schools and other agencies are developing to prevent the loss of these important programs is, in addition to those mentioned above, a worthwhile direction for future research.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks are extended to Carlette Ivory, Administrative Secretary, University of Alaska Anchorage, Department of Sociology, for typing this manuscript and to Beverli Thomas, UAA Exchange Student for assistance with various tasks associated with the final draft.
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Unpublished manuscript, Washington State University. Pullman, WA.
