Study
The randomized control study by Gushwa and colleagues (2018) evaluated the effectiveness of the Enough! Preventing Child Sexual Abuse in My School program. Full-time K–12 teachers were sampled from three public school districts in one Northeastern and two Midwestern states. Initially, teachers were randomly assigned to one of two groups, Group A or Group B. Group A received the Enough! training program, took a knowledge test at pretest and posttest, and completed a brief evaluation of the training experience. Group B received no intervention and only completed a posttest. The researchers later added a pretest to Group B to assess testing bias and control for the potential influence of the pretest on the posttest. Participants who completed both a pretest and posttest in the control group were distinguished as Group C. Of the 1,700 teachers contacted for participation, 147 responded and 134 completed the study. Group A (intervention) consisted of 61 teachers, Group B (control, no pretest) included 55 teachers, and 18 teachers were assigned to Group C (control, pre- and posttest).
The final study sample (n=134) predominantly comprised white females in their thirties with more than 10 years of teaching experience. Group A, the intervention group, was 97 percent female, 97 percent white, and 7 percent Hispanic. Of this group, the median age range was 30 to 39, modal years employed was 11 to 15, and 87 percent had a master’s degree. Group B, the control group that did not complete a pretest, was 97 percent female, 98 percent white, and 2 percent Hispanic. Of this group, the median age range was 40 to 49, modal years employed was 16 or more, and 91 percent had a master’s degree. Group C, the control group that did complete a pretest, was 89 percent female and 100 percent white. The median age range was 30 to 39, modal years employed was 11 to 15, and 83 percent had a master’s degree. There were no significant differences between the intervention and control groups.
Analyses measured the extent to which teachers who completed the Enough! training had higher knowledge of the frequency of child sexual abuse in schools, recognized boundary-violating behaviors, and understood reporting requirements for suspected or disclosed CSA, compared with teachers who did not complete the training. To identify statistically significant differences, paired t tests were calculated between the pre- and posttests of Group A (intervention) and Group C (pre- and posttest control), and a one-way ANOVA was used to compare posttest results between Group A (intervention), Group B (posttest-only control), and Group C (pre- and posttest control). Post hoc analyses were conducted for the significance of differences between each group. The study authors did not conduct subgroup analyses.
