Title
How Do We Know If It Works? Measuring Outcomes in Bystander-Focused Abuse Prevention on Campuses
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2014
Published In
Psychology of Violence
Keywords
Bystander attitudes, Bystander behavior, Measurement, Sexual and relationship abuse, Abuse prevention, Prevention program assessment, Test construction, Test reliability, Test validity
Abstract
Objective: To address acknowledged limitations in the effectiveness of sexual and relationship abuse prevention strategies, practitioners have developed new tools that use a bystander framework (Lonsway et al, 2009). Evaluation of bystander-focused prevention requires measures, specific to the bystander approach, that assess changes over time in participants’ attitudes and behaviors. Few measures exist and more psychometric analyses are needed. We present analyses to begin to establish the psychometric properties of four new measures of bystander outcomes and their subscales. Method: We collected data from 948 first year college students on two campuses in the northeast United States. Items assessing attitudes and behaviors related to bystander helping responses in college campus communities for situations where there is sexual or relationship abuse risk were factor analyzed. Results: Measures of readiness to help (assessed specifically with scales representing taking action, awareness, and taking responsibility), intent to be an active bystander, self-reported bystander responses, and perceptions of peer norms in support of action all showed adequate reliability and validity. Conclusion: The study represents a next step in the development of tools that can be used by researchers and practitioners seeking both to understand bystander behavior in the context of sexual and relationship abuse and evaluating the effectiveness of prevention tools to address these problems. The measures investigated will be helpful for prevention educators and researchers evaluating the effectiveness of sexual and relationship abuse education tools that use a bystander intervention framework.
Grant Information
Preparation of this manuscript was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by grant number 5 R01 CE001388-02 (PI: Banyard). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
DOI
10.1037/a0033470
Rights
© American Psychological Association, 2013.
Recommended Citation
Cares, A. C.; Banyard, V. L. ; Moynihan, M. M. ; and Warner, R. (2014). How Do We Know If It Works? Measuring Outcomes in Bystander-Focused Abuse Prevention on Campuses. Psychology of Violence 4(1): 101-115. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033470
Included in
Domestic and Intimate Partner Violence Commons, Educational Sociology Commons, Higher Education Commons, Social Psychology and Interaction Commons
Comments
© American Psychological Association, 2013. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. The final article is available, upon publication, at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0033470.