Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

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Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Rape--Iowa--Cedar Falls--Public opinion; College students--Iowa--Cedar Falls--Attitudes; College students--Attitudes; Rape--Public opinion; Iowa--Cedar Falls;

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess university students' attitudes toward rape and rape mythology and to measure any impact on these attitudes following exposure to a rape/sexual assault awareness curriculum unit. It was hypothesized that students attending the rape/sexual assault unit would demonstrate a statistically significant difference in their rape/sexual assault awareness attitudes and beliefs after taking a sexual assault program, and there would be a statistically significant difference according to gender.

The study sample consisted of 46 (28 male, 18 female) physical education major students enrolled in sections of 420:016, Self-Defense Class at UNI. The mean age for the sample was 21.02 years with a standard deviation of 1.76 years. Subjects were asked to complete a questionnaire with four subscales: Adversarial Sexual Beliefs Scale (ASB), Sexual Conservatism scale (SC), Acceptance of Interpersonal Violence scale (AIV), and Rape Myth Acceptance (RMA) which were developed by Burt in 1980.

A 2 x 2 x 4 (Gender x Pretest/Posttest x Subscales) multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), with doubly repeated measures on the second and third factors, was conducted to detect any significant differences between the responses. Statistical significance was specified at the p < .05 level for all comparisons.

The study found that males scored significantly higher on the ASB subscales pretest and posttest than the females. The scores for all subjects were significantly higher on the SC pretest than the posttest. Scores for the females significantly lowered while the males remained the same between the pretest and posttest on the AIV subscale. All scores for males and females were below the median possible score on each subscale in both the pretest and posttest.

Year of Submission

2000

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

School of Health, Physical Education, and Leisure Services

First Advisor

Nancy Hamilton

Second Advisor

Sharon Huddleston

Third Advisor

Michelle Yehieli

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

2000

Object Description

1 PDF file (108 leaves)

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