Comparison of Three Human Sexuality Teaching Methods Used in University Health Classes

Three teaching methods (lecture, independent study combined with small-group discussion, and audiovisual) were compared for knowledge gain and attitude change. The investigation involved 62 undergraduate university students enrolled in three personal health classes. A pretest, treatment application, and posttest format was employed. An adapted version of the Sex Knowledge and Attitude Questionnaire was used as the evaluation instrument in all testing sessions. The one-way analysis of covariance was applied to compare both knowledge and attitude results. Application of the Tukey test demonstrated that the lecture method of instruction was significantly more effective in producing sexuality-knowledge gain than was the audiovisual teaching approach. No further comparisons of knowledge gain and no comparison of attitude change yielded significant results.