Exploratory Study Assessing Sex Education and Preparing Students for Sexual Situations, An

Sex education is important for people in Wyoming as there is a teen pregnancy rate of 77 per 1,000 young women, and a sexually transmitted infection (STI) rate of 24 per 1,000 people. Furthermore, 47% of high school students report having sex before graduating. Thus, one wonders if students receive adequate education to prevent teenage pregnancy and contraction of STIs. This research aims to explore how prepared Wyoming female students are to handle sexual situations as a result of their high school sex education. University of Wyoming freshman female students who attended a Wyoming public high school and graduated no earlier than spring 2009 were chosen to participate. The independent variables are the scores obtained on The Index of Reproductive and Contraceptive Knowledge and the Contraceptive Self-Efficacy Test. These scores will indicate whether students are prepared for sexual situations, preparedness being the dependent variable. Two assessments will be administered voluntarily via an online survey that will be emailed to each participant. We expect to find that students are not well prepared for sexual situations by scoring below 85% on the Index of Reproductive and Contraceptive Knowledge and in the "low" range on the Contraceptive Self-Efficacy Tests.