Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

1985

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Abstract

Human sexuality programs and courses have become prevalent on college campuses. Reviews of the literature revealed that there was a facade of sexual sophistication attributed to college students. Students' realization that they lacked knowledge in this area provided a major impetus for many post-secondary institutions to introduce human sexuality courses. There has been an increasing need for documentation of successful human sexuality programs and evaluation of their components. This research project was designed to evaluate the effects from instruction in a human sexuality course at Miami-Dade Community College. A quasi-experimental research design, utilizing a pretest-treatment-posttest format, was used to measure intragroup and intergroup changes in knowledge, attitude, and anxiety. Attitudinal changes reflected feelings on four scales: (a) heterosexual relations, (b) sexual myths, (c) autoeroticism, and (d) abortion. Differences between pretest and posttest means were determined significant at or below alpha (p < .05). The Sex Knowledge and Attitude Test, SKAT, Form 2 and the Atkins Sexual Anxiety Scale served as instruments used to measure changes. Participants in the study were students in 11 human sexuality classes, 7 psychology classes and 7 social science classes on North and South Campuses of Miami-Dade Community College. The number of students totaled 990. Of these, 983 completed at least one of the assessments and 558 completed all of the assessments. The control group experienced a 15-week social science course. The experimental groups experienced a 15-week human sexuality course and a 15-week psychology course. Data analysis included an analysis of covariance with the pretest serving as the covariate and t tests for correlated samples. Findings indicated: (a) increases in knowledge in the human sexuality students and the psychology students; (b) significant attitudinal change in human sexuality students on three subscales: autoeroticism, sexual myths, and heterosexual relations; and significant attitudinal change in the psychology students on two subscales: sexual myths and autoeroticism; and (c) significant anxiety reduction in all groups. These findings demonstrated the effectiveness of the Miami-Dade Community College human sexuality program. Future research should address long term changes in attitudes and retention of knowledge differences between attitudes about self and others, team taught vs. individually taught, and alternative testing instruments.

Extent

124 p.

Comments

Thesis (Educat.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1985.|College of Education|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Thesis (Educat.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1985.

Identifier

FADT11862

Format

pdf

Download

Share

COinS