Effects of Mandatory Sexual Misconduct Training on University Campuses

Survey results indicated changes in students’ beliefs about sexual misconduct and rape culture, intentions to report sexual misconduct, and gender attitudes before and after the training.

Beliefs About Misconduct

• Before the training, 96% of men state the scenario “Man has sex with a woman who is extremely drunk and unable to speak clearly” is sexual misconduct. Women state this scenario is sexual misconduct at 99% before training.
• After the training, 100% of men state this scenario is sexual misconduct, a 4 percentage point treatment effect. Women continue to state this scenario is sexual misconduct at similar levels, 100% after training.
• Before the training, 77.3% of men and 81.3% of women state the scenario "Student shows you nude pictures of another student," is sexual misconduct.
• After the training, 84.5% of men and 91% of women state this scenario is sexual misconduct, a 7.2 percentage points increase for men and a 9.7 percentage points increase for women.
• Before the training, 13% of students state that ambiguous behavior such as a student saying "You look good in your jeans" is sexual misconduct. 
• After the training, 20% of students state this scenario is sexual misconduct.  
  • The treatment effect for women is an increase of 11 percentage points, compared to 3 for men. 
• Almost no students identify consensual sex as sexual misconduct before or after the training.
• There are significant differences between the control and the treatment groups regarding rape myths, indicating that training positively changed participants’ views about rape myths such as “If raped while drunk you are at least partly responsible” and “If a girl doesn’t say no, she can’t claim rape.”

Intentions to Report

• Men’s intentions to report sexual misconduct do not change before and after training, hovering around 80%.
• After the training, women, however, are 12.6 percentage points less likely to indicate intentions to report sexual misconduct.
• After the training, women are more likely to view reporting as risky, with an 8.5 percentage point increase of women indicating that they could be retaliated against. 
• After the training, men are 18 percentage points less likely to state that they would be blamed for the incident if they reported sexual misconduct. 

Sexist Attitudes

• In interviews, 63% of men expressed negative views about the training, compared to 39% of women.
• Men agree more with sexist statements compared to women, especially benevolent sexist views, and this does not change after the training.
• Women, however, are significantly less likely to agree with hostile or benevolent sexist statements after the training. 

Sexual misconduct training does have positive impacts on debunking rape myths and increasing student’s knowledge of sexual assault and harassment. However, this training is also associated with decreasing women’s willingness to report sexual misconduct and viewing reporting as risky. The researchers suggest that training programs involve multiple sessions, not just one, to increase program effectiveness. 

 

This study utilizes mandatory training to examine the real-life reactions of participants to university sexual misconduct training required by the Department of Justice. Incoming students and continuing students were required to participate in the training. The training program involved a one-hour lecture followed by 30 minutes of small-group discussion. Lecture topics included definitions of sexual misconduct, cultural values that encourage sexual misconduct, university policies, Title IX, consent, bystander intervention, and reporting strategies. Small-group discussion involved exercises to increase the students’ understanding of the lecture material. This study involves three surveys which were conducted in July 2017, November 2017, and July 2018. Students who received training were compared to similar groups of students who had not yet received the training by randomly assigning some students to take the survey before the training (control, n=639) and some students to do so after the training (treatment, n=586). There are few differences between the three treatment groups, thus their results are reported together. 

The outcome measures of the surveys are as follows. First, the researchers wanted to test students’ beliefs about sexual misconduct and rape myths. This was measured by asking students to indicate whether they believed certain scenarios to be examples of sexual misconduct and to answer four questions meant to gauge student’s rape myth acceptance. The study also measured behavioral intentions to report sexual misconduct by asking, “If you were sexually assaulted by another student at UNM, how likely would you be to report the assault to a campus authority?” The final outcome was attitudes about gender and sexism. This was measured by students indicating their agreement with statements ranging from hostile sexism (“Women are too easily offended.”) to benevolent sexism (“In a disaster, women ought to be rescued before men.”).

37 in-person interviews with students who had participated in the training were also conducted, as well as interviews with staff and public officials to ask more questions about interviewees’ perspectives on the effectiveness of the training program.