Responsible Behavior With Younger Children Pilot Study

Primary outcomes

1. Developmental Differences Between Children and Adolescents

   Time frame: 2 months

   RBYC aims to educate children about developmental differences between adolescents and younger children. The investigators were unable to identify an existing relevant measure and therefore created seven items to assess knowledge about developmental differences between adolescents and younger children. For example, "Children might feel frustrated when they can't do the same things as teenagers." Response options were true or false and scored as 0 (inaccurate) or 1 (accurate). Scale range = 0-7, with higher scores indicating more accurate understanding of developmental differences between teenagers and younger children.

2. Knowledge about CSA and Related Concepts

   Time frame: 2 months

   Included 41 true/false items coded as 0 (inaccurate) or 1 (accurate) to assess five core areas of knowledge reflecting five subscales: child sexual abuse facts, child sexual abuse laws, child sexual abuse prevention, knowledge about sexual harassment, knowledge about sexual consent Items comprising a given subscale were summed for a subscale score, with higher scores indicating more accurate knowledge.Items were created by the investigators for the study and also adapted from: Adolescent Cognition Scale (Hunter, Becker, Kaplan, & Goodwin, 1991), Children's Knowledge of Abuse Questionnaire (Tutty, 1995), and Questionnaire on Child Sexual Abuse (Halpérin et al., 1996).

3. Peer Sexual Harassment Behaviors

   Time frame: 2 months

   Included five items assessing peer sexual harassment perpetration created by Taylor and colleagues (2011). For example "Have you ever done any of the following with a peer: Made sexual comments, jokes, gestures, or looks to them?" Response options were no (0) or yes (1) and were summed to provide a final score that ranged from 0-5 with higher scores indicating engaging in more harassing behaviors.

4. Behavioral Intention to Avoid or Prevent Harm

   Time frame: 2 months

   To assess intention to avoid peer sexual harassment, the investigators used five items developed by Taylor and colleagues (Taylor et al., 2011). For example "I can help prevent sexual harassment against peers at my school". Items were measured on a four-point scale ranging from completely disagree (1) to completely agree (4) and summed for scores ranging from 5-20. To assess intention to avoid or prevent CSA, the investigators crafted seven similar items. For example "I know how to teach my friends about how to stop child sexual abuse". Again, response options ranged from completely disagree (1) to completely agree (4) and were summed for scores ranging from 7-28. For both scales, higher scores indicated stronger intention to prevent or avoid harm.