Instrument Development for Measuring Teachers’ Attitudes and Comfort in Teaching Human Sexuality

School based sexuality education remains a hotly debated topic in the United States. Two key areas of this debate focus on teacher preparation to instruct sexuality education and teachers’ attitudes and comfort with the subject matter. This article describes the development and psychometric testing of the Teachers’ Attitude and Comfort Scale. This simple-to-use instrument has acceptable construct validity and internal consistency on five domains including teacher’s concern, comfort, and attitude toward sexuality. Miguel A. Perez, PhD, is an associate professor at California State University at Fresno, 2345 E. San Ramon Ave., MS 30, Fresno, CA 93740; E-mail: [email protected]. Raffy Luquis, PhD, CHES is with The Pennsylvania State University, W 319 Olmstead, 777 W. Harrisburg Pike, Middletown, PA 17057-4898. Laura Allison, MS, CHES, is assistant director of emergency preparedness with the Dallas American Red Cross, 4800 Harry Hines Blvd, Dallas, TX 75235. Sexual development is an on-going process that starts in early childhood and continues into adolescence (Greydanus, Pratt, & Dannison, 1995; Office of the Surgeon General, 2001). The way in which adolescents encounter and adjust to their sexuality has major implications for the quality and success of future adult relationships. Data from the 1999 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System showed that many adolescents engage in unsafe sexual practices that result in serious consequences such as unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and HIV infection (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2000). Accordingly, health care professionals have recommended age-appropriate school-based sexuality education as a means of preventing these negative and costly health outcomes among adolescents (CDC, 1999; Jacobs & Wolf, 1995; Landry, Singh, & Darroch, 2000). A review of the literature on school-based sexuality education programs revealed that sexuality and HIV education programs do not increase sexual activity among teens as some people have argued. In fact, sexuality and HIV education may reduce the frequency of sexual intercourse, decrease the number of sexual partners, and may increase frequency of condom and contraceptive use among adolescents (Kirby, 2002a, 2002b; Wilson, 1994). Thus, sexuality education and what society teaches about sexual behavior are important to adolescent development. Parents, schools, communities, and society as a whole have debated who is primarily responsible for sexuality education. Parents are often afraid of harming their children by teaching sexuality education too soon or by providing misinformation (Kirby, 2002b; Wilson, 1994). In contrast, some parents argue that they ultimately are the primary educators of their children. However, a vast majority of parents want assistance from the schools in providing education on such a critical topic (Mayer, 1997). Moreover, research indicates that many parents believe that the schools are more qualified to teach those aspects of human sexuality that are technical in nature and support sexuality education in the school system (Brown & Simpson, 2000; Kaiser Family Foundation, 2000; Wilson, Miguel A. Perez, Raffy Luquis, and Laura Allison American Journal of Health Education — January/February 2004, Volume 35, No. 1 25 1994). Nevertheless, many schools do not have teachers who possess the skills, knowledge, or inclination to teach sexuality education, because few teachers have received training in that content area. A study conducted by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States found that preservice teachers are not sufficiently prepared to teach in the field of sexuality, because many of them are not required to take health education, sexuality, or HIV/AIDS courses as part of their degree requirements (Rodriguez, Young, Renfo, & Asencio, 1998). Moreover, Few, Hicken, and Butterworth (1996) found that in the United States there are no established training programs for teachers on sexuality education. In fact, surveillance reports on characteristics of health education among secondary schools showed that across the states only 41% and 5% of the health education teachers had professional preparation in health/physical education and health education, respectively. In addition, the reports revealed that only onethird of health education teachers across the states had received in-service training in pregnancy prevention, around 50% had received in-service training in HIV prevention, and less than 50% had received inservice training in other STD prevention (Grunbaum, Kann, & Williams, 1998, 2000). This evidence clearly indicates the need for change in teacher preparation on sexuality related topics (Darroch, Landry, & Singh, 2000). Many teachers generally depend on inservice training to acquire knowledge and skills pertaining to sexuality education. Therefore, it is not surprising that they report concern about their capacity to instruct their students on sexuality related topics, including STDs and HIV prevention, and their ability to teach personal skills to adolescents (Rodriguez, Young, Renfro, & Asencio, 1998). To meet the needs of adolescents and to reduce negative consequences associated with sexual activity (i.e., pregnancy, STDs), future generations of teachers must possess the skills and knowledge to educate our youth to be more responsible with respect to engaging in various sexual behaviors (National School Boards Association, 1998). Clearly there is a need in the United States to improve the preparation of teachers in comprehensive sexuality education as well as in HIV/AIDS prevention (Levenson-Gingiss & Hamilton, 1989; Rodriguez et al., 1998). This need is illustrated by the many adolescents who are sexually active by the age of 18. Given the amount of time individuals under the age of 18 spend at educational institutions, school seems to be the logical place to provide adolescents human sexuality education to help them make informed decisions on the topics of sexual behavior, HIV/AIDS, STDs, and pregnancy (Levenson-Gingiss & Hamilton, 1989). Sexuality education programs are beneficial to students only when teachers feel adequately prepared to teach the curricula. Therefore, the purpose of this investigation was to design and test an instrument designed to assess teachers’ attitudes and comfort with sexuality education. By using this instrument, school systems and universities will be able to identify teachers’ attitudes and comfort level about sexuality education before they address sexuality-related issues in the classroom.