Purpose: To evaluate whether a semester-long course for first-year undergraduates influenced knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intentions about gender, sexuality, and sexual violence. Design: Quasi-experimental survey design. Setting: A private university in the Southeastern US. Participants: Undergraduates enrolled in an intervention (n = 49) or comparison (n = 60) course in Fall 2018. Measures: Sociosexual Orientation Inventory, Sexual Conservatism, Heteronormative Attitudes and Beliefs, Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale, Bystander Efficacy Scale, Consent Myths, Sexual Misconduct Apathy, Campus Resource Awareness Index. Analysis: A 2-way mixed-factorial ANOVA. Results: Relative to the comparison group, students in the intervention course had significantly greater rates of change in reducing heteronormative views, decreasing sexual misconduct apathy, and increasing awareness of campus resources for sexual violence. Conclusion: A semester-long course targeting first-year undergraduates can potentially influence knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intentions regarding sexual violence and create a more positive campus climate.

Online coursework is becoming a teaching and learning staple in higher education, especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is minimal literature regarding academic courses for campus sexual violence prevention, particularly comparing online versus face-to-face modalities. This study examined whether the effectiveness of a semester-long credit-bearing course (GESS 1900), designed to educate first year college students about correlates of sexual violence in order to ultimately reduce campus sexual violence, differed by instructional mode. Two cohorts had completed GESS 1900 in-person when the COVID-19 pandemic struck; the third cohort was taught entirely online through synchronous instruction and with the exact same faculty instructors and course materials. This created a natural experiment to compare outcomes by instructional mode. We used a quasi-experimental, pretest–posttest survey design to compare in-person ( n = 92) versus online ( n = 45) GESS 1900 students across eight previously validated attitudinal measures related to gender, sexuality, and sexual violence. Results from a two-way, mixed-factorial ANOVA showed no significant differences related to instructional mode on seven of the eight measures. Findings further showed change over time in the desired direction for all students, regardless of instructional mode; many measures showed different starting points for the two groups, but similar rates of change over time. Thus both in-person and synchronous online versions of GESS 1900 were effective in shaping positive student outcomes. The findings have important implications for educators seeking new or multiple delivery methods to educate college students about the pressing health concern of sexual violence.

Background:The definition of natural birth remains nebulous for birthing people. There is a lack of consensus regarding the factors that render a birth experience no longer natural or normal. In the United States, Indigenous birthing people experience some of the highest rates of maternal mortality, morbidity, and mistreatment during childbirth, yet there remains a paucity of research on the root causes of these findings.Some Indigenous birthing people have continued to use midwives throughout the past century, indicating that even before the organized 1970s Indigenous movement to remove any connotation that pathologized birth, individual birthing people were demonstrating their resistance to the medicalization of Indigenous birth practices.Theres a gap in understanding, however, of indigenous birthing people’s use of medication pain relief. We argue that understanding the intricacies of Indigenous birthing people’s notions of and preferences for “natural” birth can guide the development of interventions that increase access to desired options and thereby support autonomy. Moreover, existing literature on birthing people’s preferences and birth outcomes in the United States tends to examine the experiences of American birthing people generally, but to the authors’ knowledge, there remains no research specifically exploring Indigenous preferences regarding the mode of delivery, hospital versus home birth, pain management, and use of midwives.Aim:This study’s aim was to fill this gap, contribute to an understanding of the full scope of North American Indigenous birthing people’s preferences, and catalyze further discussion regarding interventions to increase Indigenous birthing people’s access to the birthing options they need and desire.Methods:A qualitative descriptive research design was used to investigate and convey the insights of Indigenous birthing people surrounding their birth experiences and desires. A qualitative description is an approach to naturalistic investigation often used in the examination of health topics because of its strength in relaying complex experiences in everyday language.Sample:All adult, women-identifying, self-identified members of a specific state-recognized Indigenous tribe in the Gulf Coast region of the United States were eligible for inclusion in this study. Thirty-one interviews were conducted.Data Analysis:The interview transcripts were analyzed using qualitative content analysis, which entails categorizing and grouping pieces of a broader data set based on common themes.Results:Three major themes emerged from the analysis of participants’ interviews: (a) beliefs about and desire for a vaginal birth, (b) pain management methods and preferences, and (c) beliefs about and use of midwives. This study found that Indigenous birthing people in the Gulf South have varying definitions of “natural” birth, ranging from home birth to vaginal birth to unmedicated birth to midwife-attended birth.

Sexual violence is a major problem on college campuses, and innovative solutions are needed. Our university created a semester-long, credit-bearing, academic course as a curricular intervention intended to reduce sexual violence on campus. In this article, we describe the multiple methods used to evaluate the course, including a pre–post online survey with a quasi-experimental design, a qualitative content analysis of student reflection papers, and semistructured interviews with previously enrolled students conducted by a peer interviewer 3 months after course completion. The synthesis of evaluation findings indicated that an academic course has the potential to positively affect campus climate around sexual violence. Furthermore, using multiple methods enabled us to create a theory of change that illustrates how key course components shaped students’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors about sexual violence, thereby ideally generating campus change. Results have been used by various stakeholders for both practice-based and scholarly purposes. We provide lessons learned and implications for practice that are transferable to other multimethod curricular intervention evaluations regardless of topical focus, including the many ways in which using multiple methods added value to the study; the considerable investment of time and resources needed when using multiple methods; the challenges that can arise when integrating findings across methods; the major benefits of having a multidisciplinary research team consisting of faculty and students; and the need to engage in critical reflexivity.

Campus sexual violence is prevalent and consequential. After a climate survey at our university revealed high rates of sexual violence, a semester-long academic course was designed as a curricular intervention for first-year students. This study examines an assignment completed at the beginning and end of the course. Students were asked: “What are the root causes of sexual violence?” Thematic analysis of papers revealed that many students altered or expanded their thinking to more complex, structural factors compared to their initial perceptions. An academic course may broaden students’ understanding of the determinants of sexual violence.