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Program evaluation in sex education: Outcome assessment of sexual awareness weekend workshops

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Abstract

The results of an outcome assessment of a growth-oriented sex education program are reported. The evaluation project attempted to overcome flaws of existing sex education research by explicitly delineating goals and by incorporating both a rigorous experimental control group design and quasiexperimental cohort comparisons. A Sex Questionnaire (covering sexual knowledge, attitudes, and behavior) was administered to the participants of three weekend workshops at the time of registration and 1 month later. Overflow registration for one workshop permitted the random selection of a no-program control group. Results supported inferences of workshop effectiveness in meeting program goals in the areas of attitude and behavior change, but not with regard to increasing sexual knowledge. Implications for development and evaluation of sex education programs are discussed.

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Requests for additional information should be sent to Jacqueline Voss, Ph.D., Counseling Center, University of California at Irvine, Irvine, California 92716. The paper is based on research taken from the senior author's dissertation. We would like to thank the staff of Human Sexuality Services and the workshop's Task Force at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale for their support and cooperation in the evaluation project.

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Voss, J.R., McKillip, J. Program evaluation in sex education: Outcome assessment of sexual awareness weekend workshops. Arch Sex Behav 8, 507–522 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01541418

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