This application is a continuation proposal to complete analysis and dissemination of data on hidden rape that were collected in a national survey of students enrolled in postsecondary education. The data set contains the responses of 6,159 persons at 32 institutions selected to represent the diversity of higher education settings across the U.S. The data were collected to classrooms and only 1.5% of students declined who were asked to participate. The 71 page questionnaire included the Sexual Experiences Survey, a 10 item scale of behaviorally specific items that involve sexual experiences since age 14 obtained against consent via increasing amounts of coercion and physical force. In addition, respondents answered items based on existing theoretical models of sexual aggression and victimization including early experiences, psychological characteristics, situational characteristics of assault/victimization experiences, and current behavior. The goal of the proposed project is to carry out data analysis culminating in structural equation modeling.
The specific aims i nclude (1) to address computational issues in the data set including cluster weighting and regression based estimation of missing values, (2) to clean the data set through factor analysis to remove variables that need not be pursued; and to develop through the use of scaling techniques indexes of childhood sexual abuse, adult female sexual victimization and adult male sexual aggression, (3) to develop submodels of sexual aggression and sexual victimization, to test them through the use of structural equation models and to attempt a theoretical synthesis of these submodels, and (4) to disseminate the results through professional publications and through a monograph aimed at educational administrators and service providers. The result of the proposed analyses would be restricted in generalizability to the population of students in higher education. However, this group represents 25% of all persons in the U.S. aged 18-24 which is the group where the highest risk of rape occurs and a large proportion of rape education and prevention efforts take place under the auspices of educational institutions. the potential contribution of the proposed research lies in its contribution to well-informed and precisely targeted preventive programs.
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