Exploring Sexual Violence Prevention Work through Quantitative Analysis

Bovill, Helen

Abstract

Exploring sexual violence prevention work on university campus.

In 2018 three focus groups were carried out (Bovill, Waller and McCartan) with 15 first year students. These focus groups lasted up to three hours producing data contributing to UWE SpeakUp Campaign. Focus groups identified five prevalent social norms: unwanted touching, consent, inappropriate use of social media, domestic abuse and initiation and humiliation ceremonies. Five short films regarding these social norms were developed. In September 2018 these films were used as part of an induction talk to more than 5000 Fresher’s at UWE, from the student inclusivity team.

Continuing with the research, Bovill sent out closed questionnaires to all first year students (September 2018) using evidence based measures: ‘readiness to help’, ‘bystander efficacy’, and ‘bystander behaviour’ scales (Prevention Innovations Research, 2015) to explore the landscape of first year student’s knowledge of sexual violence and bystander action, receiving 560 responses. Bovill repeated this to all first years (February 2019), replicating the original questionnaire and additionally asking whether students received SpeakUp or bystander interventions, receiving 605 responses.

Additionally, colleagues from E&C and HAS, piloted a two-hour bystander programme re-developed by (Bovill, McCartan and Waller 2018) from the original eight-hour intervention developed at UWE by (Fenton et. al. 2014). 130 first year students received this programme (September 2018-January 2019). Bovill evaluated this via closed questionnaire, receiving 89 responses.

This talk will present early thoughts from this research exploring sexual violence on university campus.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Start Date: Apr 1, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jul 22, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 3, 2020
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1640430