This semester, I continued my work with Dr. Katherine Johnson and Dr. Alyssa Lederer in employing qualitative and quantitative research methods to investigate the impact that a new Tulane course—Sex, Power and Culture—has on the first-year students who took it in the Fall of 2018. We administered a pre-survey at the beginning of the semester, a post-survey at the end of the semester, and a post-post-survey three months after the conclusion of the class. In the course of this semester, we have compiled the findings from the surveys and journal entry, Dr. Lederer presented our work at the American Public Health Association conference, Dr. Johnson presented at the National Women’s Studies Association conference, and completed our analysis of the interviews. Additionally, we initiated a new round of data collection by administering a pre-survey for the Fall 2019 cohort of Sex, Power, and Culture students.
From this data, our most prominent findings include that students experienced a significant increase in awareness of campus resources. Our analysis of the journal entry for the prompt, “What was the most meaningful thing you learned in the course of this semester?” showed that students most valued the open forum format of the course, the timing of the class during freshman year, and the discussion aspect. I was particularly interested in seeing first-hand the value of utilizing qualitative and quantitative data in tandem; while the survey resultsdid not exhibit a significant increase in bystander efficacy, our results from multiple interviews show that students felt strongly that they have a heightened awareness about potentially dangerous situations when in social settings with their friends.
In the coming semester, we will be potentially conducting interviews with the new cohort of student and reviewing the degree of agreeability between the coding that I and Jessica, our graduate research assistant, performed. Additionally, we will be continuing our dissemination efforts at the American College Health Association and at the Conceiving Equity poster presentation in January. I am looking forward to putting together my own poster and presenting to my peers the work we have done over the past year!