Evaluation of a Third Grade Sexual Abuse Curriculum

This paper presents results from a third grade sexual abuse prevention program. A 24‐item questionnaire was administered as a pretest and post‐test to an experimental group (n = 236) and a control group (n = 195) of third grade students. Those receiving the sexual abuse prevention program significantly increased their sexual abuse knowledge scores from pretest to post‐test. In addition, differences in knowledge were significantly higher in the experimental compared to the control group. Students who received the sexual abuse curriculum significantly improved from pretest to post‐test on their behavioral intention scores. Results from this evaluation indicated a modest improvement can be obtained through use of this two‐hour sexual abuse prevention curriculum.