Delay in disclosure of childhood rape: results from a national survey

OBJECTIVE: This study sought to gather representative data regarding the length of time women who were raped before age 18 delayed prior to disclosing such rapes, whom they disclosed to, and variables that predicted disclosure within 1 month. METHOD: Data were gathered from 3,220 Wave II respondents from the National Women's Study (Resnick, Kilpatrick, Dansky, Saunders, & Best, 1993), a nationally representative telephone survey of women's experiences with trauma and mental health. Of these, 288 retrospectively reported at least one rape prior to their 18th birthday. Details of rape experiences were analyzed to identify predictors of disclosure within 1 month. RESULTS: Fully 28% of child rape victims reported that they had never told anyone about their child rape prior to the research interview; 47% did not disclose for over 5 years post-rape. Close friends were the most common confidants. Younger age at the time of rape, family relationship with the perpetrator, and experiencing a series of rapes were associated with disclosure latencies longer than 1 month; shorter delays were associated with stranger rapes. Logistic regression revealed that age at rape and knowing the perpetrator were independently predictive of delayed disclosure. CONCLUSIONS: Delayed disclosure of childhood rape was very common, and long delays were typical. Few variables were identified that successfully predicted disclosure behavior, but older age and rape by a stranger were associated with more rapid disclosure. This suggests that the likelihood of disclosure in a given case is difficult to estimate, and predictions based on single variables are unwarranted.     

Bedbugs

Gene G. Bradbury is a Pastor/Teacher, part time, in Concrete, WA, and spends the rest of his time writing for children and adults.     

Understanding student evaluations of teaching in online learning

In this paper, we have developed a classification model for online learning environments that relates the Instructors Overall Performance (IOP) rating (according to students’ perceptions) with the course characteristics, students’ demographics and the effectiveness of the instructor in his/her teaching roles. To that end, a comprehensive Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) instrument is proposed, which includes not only conventional teaching elements, but also items that encourage twenty-first century skills. The goal of the study is twofold: (i) to quantify the extent to which the selected variables explain the IOP rating, and (ii) determine which teaching and non-teaching variables most affect the IOP rating. The best performing classifier achieved a competitive accuracy, highlighting that the selected variables mainly determine the IOP values. Other important findings include: (i) the IOP value is mainly influenced by the effectiveness of the instructor in his/her teaching roles; (ii) teaching strategies that involve the cooperation between the technical and pedagogical roles should be promoted; (iii) the pedagogical role has the highest impact on the final IOP value; and (iv) the most influential demographic variable is the student’s status (working commitments and family responsibilities).     

SIGI PLUS and project LEARN: A retrospective

Lila Norris, Laurence Shatkin, and Martin R. Katz are Senior Research Scientists, Guidance Research, Educational Testing Service, Princeton, New Jersey 08541.     

Combining Economic and Conjoint Analysis to Determine Optimal Academic Services

In today's era of global competition, organizations must manage their functions and activities in a manner such that they are responsive to customers' needs and can provide excellence in service to the customer while also being efficient and cost conscious. These issues are extremely common in corporate organizations, but such concerns are equally relevant in service industries, including institutions of higher education. This study is conducted at a private, undergraduate institution of higher education. We utilize focus group evaluation and conjoint analysis combined with economic analysis in the form of a newly designed preferred utility economic cost diagram to pick the ideal services that should be provided to enrolled students at the institution. The package of ideal services accounts for preferred utility expressed by students and a new methodology (preferred utility function) to balance these against financial considerations to optimize services and financial gains for a college adult education program. This combination of focus groups and mathematical techniques can be easily employed by educational institutes.     

The Relative Efficiency of Departments at a Turkish Engineering College: A Data Envelopment Analysis

In this study, Data Envelopment Analysis is used to measure relative efficiencies of academic departments of an engineering college. Input and output criteria are determined and measured utilizing the academic personnel performance measurement scheme of the College. New measures are developed to compare departments of different disciplines. The discriminating power of the measurement models is improved by restricting criteria weights directly and by using a multiple criteria decision making approach. Sensitivity of the results to exclusion of a criterion and changes in relative importance of the criteria is analyzed. Evaluation of the results jointly by the college administration and the departments is explained for a successful efficiency improvement mechanism.