Sexual Violence Prevention Among Intercollegiate Athletes, Recreational Athletes, and Non-Athletes: Environmental Considerations for Program Interventions

Abstract

Previous research has suggested that individual, social, and environmental factors all play a role in developing individual attitudes regarding sexual violence. On college campuses, both intercollegiate and recreational athletics provide opportunities for students to engage in group settings that can impact these attitudes. The primary purpose of this study was to examine how attitudes towards sexual violence compared across intercollegiate athlete, recreational athlete, and non-athlete populations, while accounting for other individual and school factors. Analysis of a large national dataset found very small but statistically significant differences among these groups in their personal social norms, campus social norms, and bystander efficacy regarding sexual violence. Intercollegiate athletes were slightly lower than non-athletes in their personal social norms and bystander efficacy and slightly higher in their perceived campus social norms, while recreational athletes were higher in bystander efficacy, but lower in personal and campus social norms. Other personal demographic factors, including gender identity and sexual orientation, were also significant, while most campus factors were non-significant. These findings suggest the identification of college sport as an at-risk community for sexual violence may be an oversimplification, with implications for program intervention design.

Does Athlete Status Explain Sexual Violence Victimization and Perpetration on College Campuses? A Socio-Ecological Study

“…Studies that have included the recreational population found that recreational athletes are more like “athletes” than “non-athletes.” Young et al (2017) compared SV risk factors between intercollegiate and recreational athletes, finding no significant differences between the two groups. Evans et al (2022) found recreational athletes were similar to intercollegiate athletes in terms of their attitudes toward SV, including personal and social norms and bystander efficacy. Considering these findings, and the potential for some recreational sport atmospheres to create an increased risk of SV violence (e.g., loyalty to teammates, competitiveness), it is important to treat recreational athletes as a distinct campus subgroup.…”

“…While intercollegiate athletes reported similar rates of experiencing SV as non-athletes, they were more likely to commit SV. Therefore, we would like to suggest SV prevention education is needed at all levels of college sport, including a targeted team-level focus (Evans et al, 2022), as well as education for coaches and athletic trainers (Raj et al, 2017). Effective violence prevention education is comprehensive with sufficient dosage, utilizes well-trained educators, is theory driven and socio-culturally relevant, and includes varied teaching methods (Nation et al, 2003).…”

“…Among the questions respondents answered were whether they have experienced SV and/or perpetrated SV during their time as a college student. They also reported campus organizational affiliations and demographic information including athletics participation (intercollegiate and/or recreational), gender identity, race/ethnicity, and sexual orientation, as well as psychographic measures about their bystander efficacy and personal social norms regarding SV (Evans et al, 2022). We also collected institutional variables on public/private status, religious affiliation, enrollment size, and athletics affiliation.…”

“…The two psychometric measures used (i.e., personal social norms and bystander efficacy) were validated via a combination of principal component analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and Rasch analysis (Evans et al, 2022). Next, we ran two multilevel logistic regression analyses to test the hypotheses above.…”

“…However, research is beginning to suggest that characteristics of a sport or team may moderate the risk for SV perpetration, making specific team norms more important than athletic participation itself (Teten Tharp et al, 2013). As such, simply focusing on intercollegiate athletics as a risky community for SV is an oversimplification of factors that lead to victimization and perpetration (Evans et al, 2022). Furthermore, this perspective overlooks on-campus recreational sports which may display similar risk factors to intercollegiate athletics.…”