Behind the Pencil/Paper Measurement of Sexual Coercion: Interview‐Based Clarification of Men's Interpretations of Sexual Experiences Survey Items¹

Abstract

The ubiquity of self‐report pencil and paper surveys in sexual coercion research is matched only by the lack of attention to respondents' individual interpretations of survey items. Our purpose in this study was to examine men's interpretations of four apparently ambiguous items from a commonly used sexual coercion research instrument, the original Sexual Experiences Survey (SES; Koss & Oros, 1982). After completing the SES, college men (N = 102) were immediately interviewed about their interpretations of 4 of the SES items. Across the interviews, the men reported a variety of interpretations of each item. Ignoring SES item interpretations when forming research conclusions has significant implications for sexual coercion research. Based on the results of this investigation, we urge caution in interpreting results of studies based on self‐administered measures of coercive sexual behavior.

Unwanted sexual experiences and sexual risks in gay and bisexual men: Associations among revictimization, substance use, and psychiatric symptoms

“…Nevertheless, surveys such as the one reported here can yield biased information, and such biases must be considered when interpreting our study findings. Finally, our measures of sexual coercion may have resulted in inaccurate response patterns (Ross & Allgeier, 1996), and our scales assessing dissociation, trauma, and borderline symptoms resulted in skewed scores with responses for the entire sample below the scale midpoints. Thus, restricted ranges may have reduced the sensitivity of our measures and should be considered when interpreting our results (Allgeier & Lamping, 1998).…”

Men's and Women's Reports of Pretending Orgasm

“…A third factor affecting prevalence estimates is whether researchers attempt to identify ''false positives'' and ''false negatives.'' Research on varied topics has shown that sometimes the questionnaire options that research participants check do not match their more in-depth explanations (Ritschel, 2002;Ross & Allgeier, 1996). We addressed this issue by asking participants (a) to check whether they had pretended orgasm, done something similar, or neither of these and (b) to write a description of their experience.…”

Measuring sexual aggression perpetration in college men: A comparison of two measures.

“…Despite its wide usage, methodological and psychometric work on the SES has been lacking (Kolivas & Gross, 2007; Koss et al, 2007; see Cook, 2002; Ross & Allgeier, 1996) for exceptions). In one of the few studies to actually compare different ways of assessing sexual aggression, Abbey et al (2005) examined whether alternate item phrasings influence the likelihood of a positive response.…”