Exposure to Campus Messages about Dating and Sexual Violence: A Latent Class Analysis

Abstract

This study investigates college students’ exposure to messages about campus dating and sexual violence (DSV) to discover classes of students based on the message source. Latent class analysis was performed with data assessing 5,284 students’ exposure to 16 different sources of information regarding DSV, from having a professor discuss these topics to participating in related campus events. Several variables were included in the analysis to understand students’ class membership in relation to pertinent student demographic factors. The best model indicated that there are five classes of students based on their exposure to messages, with some subgroups of students having high exposure to various sources of messages about DSV while others have low exposure. Still other subgroups are primarily exposed to messages through nonactive or noninstitutional sources of information. Subgroups of students, based on their exposure to DSV messaging, also differ regarding demographic makeup. The implications from these results include the need to tailor DSV programming on campus to subgroups of students based on their varying baseline levels of message exposure. As students are exposed to messaging through differing sources, including passive and noninstitutional, institutions can use this information when designing outreach efforts to better fit with the needs of various subgroups of students.