tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post8294739708587410262..comments2023-10-30T12:26:15.822+01:00Comments on Research as a Second Language: The UT Austin Campus Rape CrisisThomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-17047226411416008192017-03-30T17:58:58.508+02:002017-03-30T17:58:58.508+02:00The 1 in 4, or 1 in 5, figures are based on studie...The 1 in 4, or 1 in 5, figures are based on studies with a bunch of methodological flaws too, but they are normally more carefully distinguished from claims that the relevant act is rape. Here are the authors of a key study in Time:<br /><br /><a href="http://time.com/3633903/campus-rape-1-in-5-sexual-assault-setting-record-straight/" rel="nofollow">"the 1-in-5 statistic includes victims of both rape and other forms of sexual assault, such as forced kissing or unwanted groping of sexual body parts—acts that can legally constitute sexual battery and are crimes."</a><br /><br />I completely agree with you, Jonathan, that we lack the basic tools (at least collectively) to think about this in a serious way. You are exactly right that we need to corresponding numbers for other sectors of society. I just found this in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_rape_in_the_United_States" rel="nofollow">Wikipedia</a>:<br /><br />"In a survey of 1,788 male inmates in Midwestern prisons by Prison Journal, about 21% claimed they had been coerced or pressured into sexual activity during their incarceration, and 7% claimed that they had been raped in their current facility."<br /><br />The shocker here, of course, is that, if we take the use of words at face value is that female undergraduates are twice as likely to be raped on the UT Austin campus as inmates in Midwestern prisons.<br /><br />If we think more carefully about this, we realize that what a UT undergraduate considers "coercion" (and what the study therefore considers "rape" when it results in sex) is probably on a different order than what prison inmates are thinking of. And even they distinguish between between being coerced into having sex and being raped.Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-36002418302108055752017-03-30T17:26:51.214+02:002017-03-30T17:26:51.214+02:00The usual number bandied about is 25%. So the 10% ...The usual number bandied about is 25%. So the 10% or 15% would be lower than that? But of course we would expect a higher rate among seniors than Freshman, so I don't know how to adjust it for that. The 15% is more shocking if we think it is 3 and it ends up five times more, but you don't see headlines saying: "sexual assault rates lower than previously thought." <br /><br />Other considerations:<br /><br />What is the rate for these various kind of events among college age people who are not in college? Without that comparison we are pretty lost about the meaning of these numbers. <br /><br />We also need to know what percentage is "my boyfriend wanted sex and I didn't feel like it but I did anyway." Just off the top of my head I'd say then that I am a rapist too by that definition, and that therefore this might be rather more frequent than other kinds of assault. <br /><br />What I'm suggesting is that we don't have the tools for thinking about this in a critical way at all. I don't want to minimize a real problem, but just get a handle on what it is we are really talking about when we talk about sexual misconduct. <br /><br />Jonathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-88624024568996289752017-03-29T08:33:25.825+02:002017-03-29T08:33:25.825+02:00Yes, I suspect that there's a self-selection b...Yes, I suspect that there's a self-selection bias in this sort of survey too. It was addressed directly in the report:<br /><br />"...some may assume that students with the experience of victimization are more drawn<br />to this type of study. Three strategies were used to minimize overestimation of victimization. First, the study was not advertised as a study about victimization. Second, weighting strategies were used so that the findings were reflective of the student population by gender, race/ethnicity, and school classification at the institution. Third, margins of error were also calculated to reflect relative confidence in the findings." (p. 16)<br /><br />I haven't looked at closely yet, so I don't know what the unweighted results would have looked like. For the results we're talking about, "The margin of error is ≤ +/- 2% at 95% confidence" (p. 48).<br /><br />The first strategy is probably the most important. Given that they tried not <i>attract</i> people who have an interest in the topic, I guess one could ask how many people were <i>repelled</i> by it after they started answering questions.<br /><br />Kate Clancy et al.'s <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0102172" rel="nofollow">SAFE13</a> study addressed the problem somewhat differently:<br /><br />"The sample was potentially biased by ethical, pre-participation disclosure that questions regarding these topics were in the survey. Some people may have been more likely to participate in the survey if they had negative experiences, some people may have been more likely to forward the survey link to individuals who had previously disclosed negative experiences in private conversation (snowball sampling), and some people may have been less inclined to participate in this survey to avoid emotional stress of sharing their experiences. Several colleagues directly informed the study authors that they would not participate because revisiting their experiences was too traumatic. Thus, <b>it is unclear if the self-selection of this sample produces over- or under-reporting of negative field experiences</b>."<br /><br />Here the problem of self-selection bias is apparently dismissed because the effect could go either way and they don't know which.<br />Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-21161471739822323272017-03-28T19:43:33.692+02:002017-03-28T19:43:33.692+02:00How much more likely is someone to respond to a su...How much more likely is someone to respond to a survey if they feel it is relevant to their lives? If a victim of sexual assault is much more likely to respond, then that already skews the results in an extreme way. So we are talking about 15% of 17%? (of people who could have responded). Jonathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-46846553294626820402017-03-28T15:58:04.070+02:002017-03-28T15:58:04.070+02:00An alarming statistic is that the enrollment in UT...An alarming statistic is that the enrollment in UT's incoming class is now only half what it was just four years ago! I base my assertion on the demographics on page 30 of the report, where I see the Freshman to Senior ratio equals 14/27.<br /><br />https://utexas.app.box.com/v/utaustinclasesurveyreport<br /><br />Apparently one has to correct for self-selection. My guess is that slightly more Freshman are enrolled than Seniors, due to growing enrollments and some attrition with matriculation. <br /><br />From the document itself:<br /><br />This document presents the web-based findings for UT Austin .... (45,000) Enrolled undergraduate and graduate students were randomly selected to participate in the study. Students anonymously and voluntarily answered<br />questions using a web-based platform... At UT Austin, 7,684 students participated. The response rate was 17.1%<br /><br />Interesting to me, even with the self-selection, the M/F ratio of respondents (50:49) nearly equals the invited population as a whole (51:49). (The number self-reporting an additional gender identity is 1%.) The ratio of victims is 58:40:2. This means in this study, women report behaviors interpreted as those of a victim at a rate of about 50% more than that of men. The report discusses this on page 13. "The high rates of disclosure among men are surprising, although not without precedent..."<br /><br />Also interesting, 45% report being in a romantic relationship. (Seems like a lot to me.) 2% of respondents were in a sorority or fraternity, (compared to the 17% in the general population (6700 of 40,000 undergraduates)). [ Apparently Greeks are 8 times less likely to respond to such a survey as their non-Greek peers.)<br /><br />The executive summary leaves the definitions to the methods, which are here.<br /><br />http://www.utsystem.edu/sites/utsfiles/sites/clase/files/research-methods.pdf<br /><br />It's not nice of me, but a point can be made that it would be "Attempted rape" (in its weakest form) if a person asks another person for oral sex and then expresses displeasure when rejected: <br /><br />"Even though it didn’t happen, someone tried to have oral... sex with you without your consent by ... Showing displeasure ...after you said you didn’t want to." (page 17 of above PDF).<br /><br />I think your original post made a similar point about broad definitions.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com