The STI Education Efficacy Survey (SEES)<\/strong> is a multidimensional psychometric instrument developed by Patricia Barthalow Koch, Andrew W. Porter, and Clinton Colaco at The Pennsylvania State University<\/a>. Designed to evaluate educators’ capacity to implement evidence-based sexually transmitted infection (STI<\/a>) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV<\/a>) curricula, the SEES addresses the critical gap between legislative mandates for adolescent sexual health education and teacher professional preparedness. The instrument comprises 48 items distributed across four distinct subscales: (1) Knowledge of Sexually Transmitted Infections (25 dichotomous items with a “Don’t Know” option), (2) Attitudes Toward Adolescent Sexuality and Sexuality Education (10 items assessed on a 5-point Likert scale), (3) STI Education Confidence (8 items assessing self-efficacy on a 5-point Likert-type scale), and (4) STI Education Readiness (5 items assessing operational readiness, willingness, and perceived ability on a 5-point Likert-type scale). Psychometric validation conducted with a representative sample of 120 middle and high school educators in Pennsylvania demonstrated strong internal consistency, yielding a Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 coefficient of .89 for the Knowledge subscale, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of .75, .92, and .89 for Attitudes, Confidence, and Readiness, respectively. Content validity was established via a formal Delphi consensus process with adolescent health panels drawing upon standards from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC<\/a>) and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS<\/a>). Pre- and post-intervention evaluations confirmed significant sensitivity to educational training across all functional domains, cementing the SEES as an essential diagnostic, programmatic, and research tool in school health and public health education.<\/p>\n STI Education Efficacy Survey, sexual health education, STI knowledge, teacher self-efficacy, adolescent sexuality, HIV prevention education, psychometrics, sexuality educator attitudes, curriculum readiness, school health pedagogy<\/p>\n The STI Education Efficacy Survey was designed and validated by researchers associated with the Department of Biobehavioral Health and the Pennsylvania Learning Academy for Sexuality Education at The Pennsylvania State University:<\/p>\n Correspondence regarding the instrument and its evaluation protocols is typically addressed via The Pennsylvania Learning Academy for Sexuality Education, Department of Biobehavioral Health, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802.<\/p>\n The primary purpose of the STI Education Efficacy Survey (SEES) is to systematically evaluate the diagnostic needs, foundational competencies, and instructional readiness of educators tasked with delivering adolescent STI and HIV prevention curricula. Legislative surveys by the Guttmacher Institute demonstrate that while a substantial majority of U.S. states mandate STI\/HIV education within public secondary schools, educational mandates frequently outpace educator readiness. Prospective and practicing educators often report inadequate pedagogical preparation, deficiencies in biomedical knowledge, restrictive or ambivalently held attitudes regarding youth sexual behavior, and pronounced discomfort when addressing explicit sexual health topics.<\/p>\n In clinical, community, and academic research settings, the SEES serves three main applications:<\/p>\n The theoretical rationale rests on the principle that adolescent learning outcomes in sexual health are directly contingent upon the pedagogical efficacy of their instructors. When educators possess high factual accuracy, non-stigmatizing attitudes, elevated instructional self-efficacy, and operational readiness to advocate for sexual health resources, they deliver sexual health curricula with greater fidelity, resulting in measurable declines in adolescent risk behaviors and reductions in STI transmission rates.<\/p>\n The SEES conceptualizes educator effectiveness not as an isolated trait, but as a multidimensional construct encompassing four distinct, interacting psychological and cognitive domains:<\/p>\n This cognitive dimension assesses factual mastery of epidemiological, clinical, biological, and prophylactic aspects of sexually transmitted pathogens. Rather than evaluating vague health awareness, this subscale captures specific factual verifiers, such as asymptomatic transmission rates (e.g., that chlamydial infections are largely asymptomatic in females), viral versus bacterial etiologies, viral persistence despite the absence of visible lesions (e.g., HPV<\/a> and Herpes Simplex Virus<\/a>), and structural prophylactic properties (e.g., latex versus natural membrane condoms and the catastrophic effect of oil-based lubricants on latex integrity). The operationalization incorporates a distinct “Don’t Know” option to prevent guessing and isolate genuine factual mastery from subjective uncertainty.<\/p>\n This affective-normative dimension measures an educator’s baseline perspectives concerning adolescent sexual development, systemic access to contraception, and pedagogical paradigms (e.g., comprehensive versus abstinence-only approaches). Rooted in attitudinal psychology, this subscale identifies cognitive biases\u2014such as the belief that providing contraceptive education promotes promiscuity, or the assumption that adolescents lack the cognitive capacity to practice responsible behavior. Higher scores reflect affirming, evidence-aligned attitudes recognizing that adolescent sexuality is a normal developmental stage and that comprehensive educational access empowers responsible health choices.<\/p>\n Grounded directly in Bandura’s self-efficacy theory<\/a>, this dimension measures an educator’s perceived capability to execute the pedagogical and relational tasks necessary for high-quality instruction. It measures confidence across multiple behavioral domains, including comfort in explicitly discussing sensitive anatomical or behavioral topics with teenagers, comfort communicating with professional peers and school administrators, confidence in designing classroom learning activities, and perceived skill in fostering an open, shame-free communication environment with adolescents.<\/p>\n The readiness dimension gauges behavioral intent, willingness, and perceived operational ability to translate theoretical knowledge into proactive professional action. Beyond standard classroom delivery, this subscale captures broader advocacy and systemic engagement, evaluating the educator’s readiness to serve as a designated resource person, participate in departmental curriculum revision, advocate for adolescent access to health services, and influence institutional policy within schools and community agencies.<\/p>\n The architecture of the SEES is underpinned by two primary theoretical foundations: Bandura\u2019s Social Cognitive Theory<\/strong> (specifically the construct of self-efficacy) and Fishbein and Ajzen\u2019s Theory of Reasoned Action<\/strong> (and its successor, the Theory of Planned Behavior<\/a>).<\/p>\n According to Albert Bandura<\/a> (1977, 1997), human motivation and performance are critically governed by self-efficacy beliefs\u2014subjective convictions regarding one’s ability to successfully execute behaviors required to produce specific outcomes. In educational contexts, teacher self-efficacy determines instructional perseverance, instructional innovation, and emotional resilience when confronting controversial curricular topics. Teaching STI and HIV prevention requires navigating cultural taboos, parental concerns, and adolescent vulnerability. Educators with low self-efficacy experience instructional avoidance, omit medically accurate descriptions of barrier methods, or fail to engage students interactively. The SEES operationalizes Bandura\u2019s mastery expectations within its Confidence and Readiness subscales, asserting that knowledge alone cannot predict effective teaching unless paired with high pedagogical self-efficacy.<\/p>\n Concurrently, the instrument incorporates Icek Ajzen<\/a> and Martin Fishbein’s<\/a> attitudinal paradigm (1980). This model posits that behavioral intentions (e.g., instructional readiness and classroom advocacy) are direct functions of an individual’s attitudes toward the behavior and subjective normative beliefs. If an educator holds personal beliefs that adolescent sexuality is inherently shameful or that sexual health instruction undermines parental authority, these negative attitudes directly degrade instructional fidelity. The SEES synthesizes these traditions into an integrated model: factual biomedical knowledge provides the cognitive prerequisite; progressive, evidence-based attitudes provide motivational congruence; and self-efficacy generates the behavioral confidence and readiness necessary to deliver effective sexual health education.<\/p>\n The STI Education Efficacy Survey was subjected to rigorous psychometric validation during its development and field deployment:<\/p>\n Empirical reliability metrics for the SEES were calculated from a field sample of N<\/em> = 120 middle school and high school teachers across Pennsylvania (Koch, 2009). The sample consisted of approximately 67% female educators, with 75% reporting more than five years of professional classroom experience<\/span>.<\/p>\n Reliability coefficients across the four individual subscales demonstrate high internal consistency:<\/p>\n During the developmental phases of the SEES, the dimensional structure was informed by classical test theory, expert Delphi panels, and exploratory factor analytic (EFA) procedures:<\/p>\n The 25 knowledge items were selected based on item difficulty and discrimination indices, retaining items that effectively differentiated between high- and low-performing educators while avoiding ceiling effects. The dichotomous nature of the knowledge items supports a unidimensional cognitive knowledge factor reflecting overall STI health literacy.<\/p>\n For the non-cognitive domains (Attitudes, Confidence, and Readiness), exploratory factor analysis utilizing principal axis factoring with promax rotation affirmed a three-factor solution corresponding to the theoretical divisions:<\/p>\n These findings substantiate the practice of reporting individual subscale scores rather than conflating knowledge, attitudes, self-efficacy, and advocacy readiness into an unweighted single composite score.<\/p>\n The STI Education Efficacy Survey (SEES) was developed in 2009<\/strong> by Patricia Barthalow Koch, Andrew W. Porter, and Clinton Colaco at The Pennsylvania State University, funded in part through initiatives supporting the Pennsylvania Learning Academy for Sexuality Education in collaboration with the Pennsylvania Department of Education. The survey was designed as a public health evaluation and educational research instrument. It is generally available for non-commercial educational, institutional, and scholarly research purposes upon proper citation of the authors and institutional source. Researchers and school districts seeking to utilize, digitize, or adapt the SEES for formal evaluations should contact the lead author, Dr. Patricia Barthalow Koch, through the Department of Biobehavioral Health at The Pennsylvania State University to obtain explicit permission and review standard administration protocols.<\/p>\n A comprehensive guide to the STI Education Efficacy Survey (SEES), evaluating teacher knowledge, attitudes toward adolescent sexuality, instructional confidence, and curriculum readiness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[55,109,2],"tags":[21824,161,27441,27440,27442],"class_list":["post-9290","psych_scale","type-psych_scale","status-publish","hentry","category-educational-psychology","category-health-psychology","category-psychometrics","tag-hiv-prevention","tag-self-efficacy","tag-sex-education","tag-sti-education","tag-teacher-preparedness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/psych_scale\/9290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/psych_scale"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/psych_scale"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/psych_scale\/9290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}2. Keywords<\/h2>\n
3. Authors<\/h2>\n
\n
4. Purpose<\/h2>\n
\n
5. Psychological Construct<\/h2>\n
1. Knowledge of Sexually Transmitted Infections<\/h3>\n
2. Attitudes Toward Adolescent Sexuality and Sexuality Education<\/h3>\n
3. STI Education Confidence<\/h3>\n
4. STI Education Readiness<\/h3>\n
6. Theoretical Framework<\/h2>\n
7. Validity<\/h2>\n
\n
8. Reliability<\/h2>\n
\n
9. Factor Analysis<\/h2>\n
\n
10. Instrument \/ Measurement Tool<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year<\/h2>\n
12. References<\/h2>\n
\n
13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)<\/h2>\n