Using Youth’s Questions to Identify Gaps of Information in Current Sex Education Programming

Abstract Information: The constructs of relationships within the youth population are evolving with every generation. Social patterns and expectations, along with the rapid advancement of technology and information sharing has changed the landscape of what youth encounter as social beings today. Sexual education curriculum creation does not always evolve parallel with these changes. Previous programs have asked for youth’s questions in an effort to highlight special topics, but those special topics are not captured in the content curriculum. Utilizing youth perspective to guide curriculum’s narrative allows the creation of sex education to be the best fit to today’s youth. By incorporating this practice of reflective and continuous quality improvement of curriculum allows content to be current to youth’s demands. In an effort to recognize gaps within sexual education, we are identifying areas in our current curricula material that do not capture youth’s demands. During the sixth session of a sexual health program, all youth are provided blank index cards to record any questions they have and are asked to place them in a locked ballot box. These questions are analyzed to understand what in the curriculum is missing that youth are seeking to learn. Our analysis of the questions from the youth showed that more than half asked were not covered by our current content. Specifically, regarding themes of legality around sexting, sex, and contraception as well as sexual initiation planning, etc. As a result, we are able to close gaps between what is missing in our curriculum that youth are eager to learn. Suggestions for future programs include accountability measures to keep content up to date and allow opportunities to modify or adapt curriculum for cohorts participating.

Relevance Statement: Our proposal, “Using Youth’s Questions to Identify Gaps of Information in Current Sex Education Programming”, highlights a missing step in evaluation practice for sexual education. Current sexual education programming has an opportunity for youth to ask anonymous questions to the program staff, but these questions are not being captured in the content creation of these curriculums. Our proposed abstract will highlight the youth’s voice as themes that should be implemented in sex education curriculum content. By collecting and analyzing youth’s questions into qualitative themes, we can use them as a guide to ensure that our content is relevant and answers youth’s demands. Adding in the practice of applying youth’s inquires to the content can maintain the relevancy to youth who are participating. Evaluators who work in education programs strive to make their content informational and relevant to youth. If we want to ensure that our curriculum is the best fit for youth today, we need continuous quality improvement of content that is youth-focused. Our proposal is for evaluators to replicate these methods into their own curriculum so that sexual education may benefit as well as a variety of other heath topics. By obtaining systematic accountability measures of their own, they allow opportunities to reflect and adapt curriculum to stay current and build connections with the youth who are participating.