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A Website Content Analysis of Women’s Resources and Sexual Assault Literature on College Campuses

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Abstract

In an effort to examine how higher education institutions have provided women with resources to handle issues that disproportionately affect them, this study assessed the availability of women’s resource centers on college campuses within the United States, with a particular focus on sexual assault-related resources. A website content analysis was conducted, through which we coded to assess ease of use, clarity, and comprehensiveness of the programs and information made available to women. Although many universities had sexual assault literature, few had women’s resource centers. In addition, the quality of literature and programs varied greatly among the universities. Future research should attempt to explain organizational differences in college responses to the call for resources, as well as examine women’s experiences with resources on campus.

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Notes

  1. The terms victim and survivor will be used interchangeably throughout the text. Survivor will be most often used as it is considered more appropriate by feminist and advocacy literature.

  2. The University of Texas list is from their website retrieved on January 5th, 2006 and the Thomson-Peterson book is from 2004. There was not a more current version of the book available at the time.

  3. Some of the schools in this sample are specialty but they met the over 1,000 undergraduate criteria so they were included as to not further limit the sampling frame.

  4. These schools generally do not have sexual assault resources or women’s resource centers. Rape is an issue on college campuses for women ages 18–24 and they are underrepresented in these other schools.

  5. There were five universities that did not have search engines, so we consulted their student handbooks and student organizations via the web.

  6. Two coders were used to code the websites. The first coder coded all 60 of the sites. The second coder randomly coded 30 of the sites and only 3 of those 30 coded were different from the original coder. The coders examined the differences and came to agreement but that still leaves the original coding reliability at 90%.

  7. Although the definition of a ‘women’s resource center’ is quite arbitrary, we are looking for any form of center that provides resources to women and this could be within the realm of a diversity center or another such labeled center.

  8. This statement must include: the right of the complainant to know the outcome of the hearing, have others present at the hearing, the right of students to be notified of available counseling, mental health or student services both on campus and in the community, the right to notification and options for available assistance in, changing and living situations after alleged assault, and lastly, the accused has the right to have others present at the hearing.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Angela Moe and Angela Simon for their invaluable assistance throughout the course of this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law, University of Florida, P.O. Box 17330, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA

    Rebecca Hayes-Smith & Justin Hayes-Smith

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  1. Rebecca Hayes-Smith
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  2. Justin Hayes-Smith
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Correspondence to Rebecca Hayes-Smith.

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Hayes-Smith, R., Hayes-Smith, J. A Website Content Analysis of Women’s Resources and Sexual Assault Literature on College Campuses. Crit Crim 17, 109–123 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-009-9075-y

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