Evaluation of a Coach-Facilitated Bystander Prevention Program for Collegiate Student-Athletes

• In Event: 28.032 - Evaluation of School-Based Prevention Programs to Enhance Student Social and Emotional Well-Being

Abstract

High rates of sexual assault on college campuses have spurred increasing research, media attention, and policy efforts in the past decade (DeGue, 2014; DOE, 2014; Krebs et al., 2014; Rocheleau, 2016). With respect to prevention, bystander training has been highlighted as a particularly promising strategy (DeGue, 2014). Given that student-athletes are often highly visible and respected members of the campus community and beyond, they reflect a key group of potential bystanders. Further, the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) has called upon athletic departments and student-athletes to be campus leaders in sexual violence prevention (Wilson et al., 2014). However, to date there is a lack of research on optimal ways to engage coaches and student-athletes in sustainable sexual violence bystander prevention efforts. Moreover, pilot study data collected from 251 Division I student-athletes demonstrated that male student-athletes have significantly higher acceptance of rape myths and are significantly more likely to report that the bystander training was useless compared to female student-athletes.

To fill gaps in research to date, the objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of an innovative bystander prevention program that utilizes coaches as co-facilitators. Currently, only one program that utilizes coaches as facilitators has been evaluated and demonstrated promising results with male high school athletes (Miller et al., 2013), suggesting that coaches can be effective communicators of the message to stop violence against women. This evaluation will build on those promising findings by examining the effectiveness of coaches as co-facilitators to Division I, collegiate, male and female student-athletes. Specifically, the evaluation will examine changes in knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of student-athletes and coaches regarding bystander behavior, and also assess their reactions to the inclusion of coaches in program delivery.

The evaluation, which is funded by the NCAA, is taking place at one northeastern, Division I university. Pre-survey data is currently being collected from 600 student-athletes, 11 coaches, and 7 trainers. Ten teams will receive the bystander prevention programming in same-sex groups with their coaches as co-facilitators (intervention group), and 17 teams will receive the intervention in same-sex groups facilitated by two campus facilitators from outside of athletics (control group). Both control and intervention trainings are underway and post-training data will be collected by December 2018 to fulfill the requirements of the NCAA funding, which requires report submission by January 2018. Survey measures include the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale-Short Form (IRMA-SF; Payne et al., 1999), the Athletic Identity Measurement Scale (Brewer et al., 1993), positive and negative bystander intervention (Miller et al., 2012), knowledge questions related to the program, and reactions to the program. Results will examine changes from pre- to post-training for both student-athletes and coaches.

Utilizing coaches, who student-athletes already know and trust, may prove to be one way to engage this highly visible population in sexual assault prevention. This will be the first study to date that examines the effectiveness of a coach-facilitated bystander prevention program for collegiate student-athletes, and will inform how other universities approach bystander prevention programs for collegiate student-athletes.

Authors

• Chelsey Bowman, Boston University

• Yara Tashkandi, Boston University

• Melissa K. Holt, Boston University