Peer Educators In Comprehensive Sex Education Will Improve Efficacy: A Proposed Study

Abstract

Sexuality education is high school settings is a topic that taught in many different ways depending on state laws, district policies, and resources available. However, sexuality education falls into two main overarching categories: Abstinence-Only programming and Abstinence-Plus or comprehensive programming. The current study proposes to analyze the effects of peer educators co-teaching comprehensive sexuality education courses alongside adult educators. This study proposes to assess the progress of two sections of the comprehensive sexuality education program Safer Choices facilitated by Planned Parenthood of Michigan to determine whether lessons are more effective and/or enjoyable when co-taught with a peer educator. The control section of the Safer Choices program will be taught solely by an adult educator, and the control section will be co-taught by an adult educator and a peer educator, with post-test scores of both sections compared for efficacy. I predict that not only will those students in the classes co-taught by the peer educator score higher on the post-test given than the classes taught by an adult alone, but also that the section of classes featuring a peer educator will be rated as more enjoyable by students. Implications of this study are also discussed.