(030) A Preliminary Analysis of the Effects of Title IX Mandatory Reporting Policies on Undergraduate Students’ Likelihood of Disclosing Sexual Violence
Authors: Sears M , Price S , Sharp R , Meston C 
Published: June 2023

Introduction

In the United States, Title IX requires employees of federally funded universities to report any knowledge of university-related nonconsensual sexual experiences (NSEs), whether or not the students involved desire to file a report. Research assessing students’ likelihood of disclosing sexual violence to someone at their university under these policies remains sparse; however, the extant literature found that people with NSE histories feel they would be less likely to disclose sexual violence with mandatory reporting (MR) policies present. Even without MR policies, one factor that has consistently shown to impact an individual’s likelihood of disclosing an NSE is whether or not they label their NSE with a sexual violence term (e.g., rape). Individuals who do not identify their NSEs with these terms (“non-identifiers”) are less likely to report than individuals who do identify with these terms (“identifiers”). None of the previous studies on MR have used an experimental design to evaluate the effects of MR on students’ likelihood of reporting sexual violence to universities, nor have they taken the students’ identification of their NSEs into account when evaluating this likelihood.

Objectives

The current study aimed to fill these gaps by (1) using an experimental design to assess students’ likelihood of reporting sexual violence to the university under MR policy and (2), evaluating how NSE identification, rather than NSE history alone, impacts likelihood of reporting under such policies.

Methods

120 undergraduate students were recruited for the current study. Participants were randomized into two groups: one group was instructed to imagine that their university had MR policies in place while the other was instructed to imagine that university employees were all confidential reporting sources-- meaning that students could disclose their NSE without creating a formal report. Next, participants were presented with four gender-neutral vignettes that differed in the perpetrator (professor vs. student) and type of assault (penetrative vs. non-penetrative). After each vignette, participants responded to questions adapted from Newins and White (2018) asking how likely they would be to report the offense if they were the student in the vignette. Students also completed the Non-Consensual Sexual Experiences Inventory to assess NSE history and identification (NSEI; Kilimnik et al., 2018).

Results

Preliminary analyses using a mixed factor repeated-measures ANOVA indicated a significant difference in student likelihood of disclosure (p &lt; 0.001). Post-hoc analyses revealed that students were significantly more likely to report with a professor perpetrator than a student. Additionally, when the perpetrator was a student, participants were more likely to disclose in cases of penetrative rather than non-penetrative assault. No significant differences were detected by condition or NSE identification in the preliminary analyses.

Conclusions

These preliminary results suggest that MR policy may not significantly affect a student’s likelihood of disclosing sexual violence to the university as some previous literature has suggested. Further analysis will be conducted to increase our understanding of any potential impact of mandatory reporting policies on students’ overall likelihood to seek university resources and receive support for nonconsensual sexual experiences.

Disclosure

No.