Consent Literacy Evaluation

Sexual violence is a preventable form of violence, commonly experienced by students on university campuses, often perpetrated by other students, that results in short and long-term negative educational, health and social outcomes. Preventing sexual violence among college and university students is a public health priority that is known to require a multi-component, coordinated whole-campus strategy. Many sexual and gender-based violence prevention education and training programs have been developed, implemented and evaluated in post-secondary settings, primarily in the United States, however few have been subject to evaluation on Canadian campuses.

In 2023, McMaster University’s Equity and Inclusion Office introduced a new, asynchronous virtual learning course, “It Takes All of Us”: Creating a Campus Community Free of Sexual Violence, based on Concordia University’s It Takes All of Us program. The course was introduced as one tool to raise awareness about consent, sexual violence prevention, and McMaster University resources and supports.

As of June 2023, in Canada there were 19 universities, 5 colleges and 7 Cégep programs offering the “It Takes All of Us” course, primarily in Quebec. However, this course had not been previously subject to evaluation, apart from unpublished evaluations conducted by Concordia University. Given this, the need was identified to conduct an evaluation with the goal of determining if this course is acceptable and feasible to continue delivering at McMaster University. A secondary goal was to determine whether completion of the course should be mandated for all students.

ConsentLit Evaluation Recruitment Poster

What were the evaluation objectives?

The overarching evaluation objectives were to:

Gather and analyse student and expert perspectives on the “It Takes All of Us” course, its impact and whether it is sufficient in addressing:
- student attitudes, awareness of support/resources, and knowledge of consent, sexual health and sexual violence, and
- student skills, confidence and behaviours as bystanders and participants
Gather and analyse student and expert perspectives and recommendations regarding:
- whether the course should remain voluntary or become mandatory,
- adaptations or improvements to the course, and
- additional training and resources for sexual violence prevention.

Findings from this evaluation are intended to inform the following decisions:

Should the “It Takes All of Us” course continue to be offered at McMaster University?
Should completion of the course for students, faculty/staff be voluntary or mandatory?
Grounded in evidence and best practices implemented in other post-secondary institutions and beyond, what additional strategies can be implemented at McMaster to prevent sexual violence?

What were the evaluation methods?

Evaluation methodology

To achieve the evaluation objectives, a convergent mixed methods design was followed.
Data were collected through:

1 Student survey
13 Student focus groups
6 Expert focus groups

Data from 13 student focus groups were transcribed verbatim and analysed using a team-based rapid qualitative data analysis approach, to identify important patterns and themes. These themes then informed the questions for the 6 expert focus groups held with 23 academic and post-secondary experts in sexual violence research and programming, also transcribed and analysed to identify patterns and themes.