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Young adult males' evaluation of their sexual health education : an enhanced critical incident technique analysis

University of British Columbia

The purpose of this study is to learn from young adult males what critical incidents of sexual health education (SHE) helped, hindered, and were wished for, regarding their personal understanding of their own gender identity and sexuality. With the dramatic disparity in sexual health outcomes between young men and women, it seems sexual health education is not as effective at increasing health seeking behaviours, preventing sexually transmitted diseases, or creating and fostering healthy sexual identity development for males as it is for females. Using the Enhanced Critical Incident Technique analysis (ECIT) eleven young adult males (ages 18-25) were asked what helped, hindered, and what they wished for from the SHE they received in British Columbia (BC) public schools. This was done to better understand how to better reach males in sexual health education. There was a total of 205 critical incidents (CIs), with 75 helping incidents, 58 hindering incidents, and 72 wish list items (WL). The CIs and WL items are organized into 13 categories that reached the required 25% participation rate (Borgen & Amundson, 1984): five helping categories, two hindering categories, and six wish list categories. The six helping categories are Harm Reduction, Normalization of the Male Body, Condom Demo, Anatomy and Function of Female Body, and Anonymous Question Box. The two hindering categories are Instructor and Delivery and Peer Influence and Behaviour. The six wish list categories are Gender Identity, LGBTQ Inclusive, Class Size, Continuous Education, Sex Positivity and Normalization, and Consent. The resulting data suggests that sexual health education that is continuous, sex-positive, skills-based, and is taught by a normalizing and comfortable instructor in a safe and confidential environment would be most desirable and engaging for young males.

Text

2017-08-30

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/62884

Counselling Psychology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/