By James Jaccard and Tonya Dodge A feature of most outreach programs designed to reduce adolescent pregnancy is the provision of information that helps adolescents make responsible decisions about sex. Considerable research has explored the relationship between knowledge acquisition and sexual risk behavior.
Most studies find no relationship between knowledge and responsible sexual behavior.
A problem with this literature is the failure to recognize that behaviors are tied to some types of knowledge but not others. It is not atypical for a study to develop a general test of reproductive knowledge and then to correlate test scores with how sexually active adolescents are. Although such knowledge is important for adolescents to have, it is somewhat removed from such behavioral decisions. Knowledge about how to use a condom correctly is crucial to the behavior of using a condom correctly but largely irrelevant to the behavior of using a condom consistently. It is not surprising that studies find weak relationships between knowledge and behavior because studies often measure the wrong kinds of knowledge or knowledge that is far removed from the behavioral criterion.