The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has identified the need for an effective sexual assault prevention program for adolescents and young adults. In response to this need, American Research Corporation of Virginia proposes the development and evaluation of CD-ROM-based interactive multimedia for preventing sexual assault among women in high school and in college. Interactive multimedia is the integration of text, graphics, and audiovisual media with computer-based information retrieval techniques to enable a user to view information in a nonlinear, intuitive manner. In Phase I, the target population will be young adults in college, and grant specific aims will entail development of instructional content and scripts for video portions of the program, integration of the content with multimedia presentation technology, and evaluation of the Phase I system with regard to usability and changes in knowledge and attitudes. In Phase II, sexual assault prevention programs will be developed for adolescents in grades 9-12 and for young adults who are not in college, and changes in behavior in comparison to more traditional forms of instruction be will ascertained using a large sample from the target population in a pretest- posttest experiment with control group.
Potential markets of the proposed program include schools, universities, and home users. In a school environment, the program could be integrated with existing prevention programs or implemented as a stand-alone curriculum. A potential mode of delivery to the home market is through conversion of the program to interactive television format, such as Sony Playstation technology.
