(PS2-36) Examining the factor structure of the Family Life Sex Education Questionnaire (FLSEQ)

Abstract Text: Title: Examining the factor structure of the Family Life Sex Education Questionnaire (FLSEQ)

Kaela Van Til1,2,3, Minden B. Sexton2,3, & RaeAnn E. Anderson4
1Purdue University, Department of Psychological Sciences
2Ann Arbor VA Healthcare System, Mental Health Service
3University of Michigan, Department of Psychiatry
4University of Missouri, Kansas City, Department of Nursing and Health Studies

Education on sex and sexual health has been posited to influence individuals health, values, and autonomy (e.g., Braken & Cardinal, 2008; Valentiner, 2021). There are also current recommendations that sexual education be used as a strategy to prevent sexual violence (Schneider & Hirsch, 2020). Thus, it is critical that data on sexual education be collected in an empirical manner to understand it's various components, so that the information can be applied for the bettering of sexual health, safety, and violence prevention. One such method of collecting this data is by using the Family Life Sex Education Questionnaire (FLSEQ) which is adapted from the Family Life Sex Education Goal Questionnaire II (FLSE-GQ; Godin & Razzano, 2013) and based on theories of human development. This measure is posited to capture multiple domains important to sexual education and encompassing the lifespan: sexual decision making, physical development, respect for diversity, secondary prevention, and family life and personal growth. Components such as these have been found to be particularly important in successful sexual education (e.g., Grose et al., 2014; Torres-Cortes et al., 2023), however, the FLSEQ’s proposed structure has not been subjected to substantial empirical testing. The purpose of this study is to test the proposed five-factor structure of the FLSEQ to further understand how aspects of sexual education can be validly measured and consider other empirically-derived models. To this aim, we evaluated scale performance among women enrolled in a large public university study of women’s relationships and sexual health (N = 612). Using pre-registered analyses, exploratory factor analyses (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) will be used to test the proposed five-factor structure of the FLSEQ and alternative models. First, the sample will be randomly split in half (N = 306 each) to allow for the testing of the empirically derived and theoretically derived models. An EFA based on parallel analysis recommendations and item loadings will be conducted using the first half of the sample to determine alternate structures of the FLSEQ. In the second half of the sample, CFA will be conducted on the empirically derived models as well as the theoretically derived model, and they will be compared by examining their relative fit statistics (e.g., RMSEA, TLI) and AIC values. The result will aide in further understanding the domains of measuring sexual education among college-age women, and how measures such as the FLSEQ can be used for further examining the relationship between sexual education, health, and violence prevention.