“ You Don’t ‘Just Know’”: Difficulties in Determining Desire, Recognizing Trauma, and Accessing High-Quality Sexual Education in Neurodiverse Young Adults
Department of Psychology, Rowan University
How they used Delve
A five-person coding team at Rowan University used Delve to double-code roughly 55 semi-structured interviews with autistic and non-autistic college students about sexual consent and sex education, reaching a Krippendorff's alpha above .80 and using Delve to split the coded data by cohort for comparison.
“This thematic analysis took place in the Delve online software suite (Twenty to Nine LLC., 2023), using a combined inductive and deductive approach. [...] Theme exploration was facilitated through Delve, in which researchers were able to split data by relevant groups, such as the autism cohort, to evaluate for similarities and differences.”
- Field
- Autism research; sexual consent and sexuality education among neurodiverse college students
- Data
- Semi-structured interviews with 55 autistic and non-autistic college students (ACCS study) about navigating sexual consent and their sex education, alongside survey data from a combined sample of 285 students
- Approach
- Braun & Clarke's six-phase thematic analysis with combined inductive and deductive coding; a shared framework trained on five transcripts, every remaining transcript double-coded by two randomly assigned coders, consensus meetings, and a final Krippendorff's alpha over .80
- Data types
- Interviews
Abstract
Prior literature has indicated that autistic students report unsatisfactory sexual education experiences and may also be at greater risk of both sexual assault victimization and perpetration than non-autistic peers. Current mixed methods findings combine data from two related studies to explore satisfaction with sexual education among autistic and non-autistic college students. Findings support hypotheses that autistic students are less satisfied with consent education than non-autistic peers. Qualitatively, a theme of difficulties in identifying one’s own desire to consent was observed across groups. Within the autistic group, a theme of delayed recognition of sexual assault was observed. Findings support the importance of early and comprehensive sexual education and suggest further attention may be needed to support students in navigating healthy sexual decision-making.
Citation
Erin E. McKenney, Claudia L. Cucchiara, Sapjah B. Zapotitla, Katherine Gotham (2024). “ You Don’t ‘Just Know’”: Difficulties in Determining Desire, Recognizing Trauma, and Accessing High-Quality Sexual Education in Neurodiverse Young Adults. American Journal of Sexuality Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/15546128.2024.2445171