Sexual Victimization of College Women

Abstract

The Sexual Victimization of College Women (SVoCW) scale is a robust psychological instrument developed by Belknap, Fisher, and Cullen. Its primary function is to comprehensively measure the full spectrum of unwanted sexual experiences encountered by college women. Unlike instruments focused narrowly on legal definitions of rape or sexual assault, the SVoCW scale captures a broad range of behaviors, including acts involving physical force, threats of harm, attempted victimization, unwanted touching, and various forms of sexual coercion. The instrument employs a two-stage methodology: an initial screening via 11 core questions (typically interview-administered), followed by detailed incident reports. Data analysis utilizes a rigorous hierarchical scoring system to ensure classification reflects the most severe type of sexual victimization experienced.

Keywords

Sexual victimization, Sexual assault, Campus safety, Sexual coercion, Forced sexual intercourse, Victimology, Survey instrument, Violence against women, College environment.

Authors

Belknap JB, Fisher BS, Cullen FT, Turner MG.

Purpose

The central purpose of the SVoCW scale is to provide a detailed and comprehensive assessment of sexual violence experienced by college women during a specific academic period, generally defined as the time since the beginning of the academic fall term. This scale was explicitly developed to overcome the inherent limitations of earlier instruments that often failed to capture the full continuum of sexually coercive and assaultive behaviors, thereby providing a more accurate measure of campus violence.

Specifically, the SVoCW targets behaviors that rely on nonphysical means of control—such as threats of nonphysical punishment (e.g., academic or professional repercussions), promises of reward, or overwhelming verbal pressure—rather than only overt physical force. By including these nuanced forms of perpetration, the scale provides a more ecologically valid measure of campus sexual violence, designed to assess victimization perpetrated by both intimate partners and non-intimate acquaintances or strangers.

Construct

The SVoCW scale operationalizes the complex construct of sexual victimization across distinct levels of severity and type of unwanted contact. This multi-dimensional approach ensures that the measurement captures the full range of experiences, which are categorized into three primary domains:

• Forced Sexual Contact: This category encompasses completed or attempted acts of forced sexual intercourse (vaginal, oral, or anal), as well as penetration involving a foreign object, all achieved through the use of physical force or direct threats of harm.
• Unwanted Sexual Touching: This domain measures non-penetrative contact, including forced kissing, fondling, unwanted rubbing, or grabbing, perpetrated using force or explicit threat.
• Sexual Coercion: This critical category addresses unwanted sexual contact or intercourse achieved through psychological or nonphysical means. Examples include threats of nonphysical punishment (such as reputational damage or job loss), promises of reward (e.g., improved grades or promotion), or persistent, overwhelming continual verbal pressure (pestering).

Validity

The foundational research strongly supports the enhanced content validity of the SVoCW scale. The developers intentionally broadened the scope of measurement beyond restrictive legal or narrow survey definitions of rape and sexual assault. This comprehensive inclusion of forced sexual contact, unwanted touching, and sexual coercion ensures the instrument accurately reflects the diverse mechanisms through which sexual violence is perpetrated within the campus environment.

While detailed empirical data regarding construct and criterion validity are extensive, they are primarily elaborated upon in the seminal research articles published by the primary authors. Researchers seeking specific validation metrics are strongly advised to consult the original publications by Fisher, Cullen, and Belknap (1999, 2000) for empirical evidence supporting the scale’s robustness.

Reliability

Reliability for the SVoCW scale is assessed based on the rigor of its two-stage methodology. Because the instrument moves from initial screening questions to detailed incident reports, reliability must account for both the consistency of initial reporting and the accuracy of subsequent incident classification.

The scale is highly regarded within the field of victimology for its methodological design, which is specifically engineered to minimize potential reporting errors. Although specific psychometric coefficients, such as Cronbach’s Alpha or test-retest reliability scores, are not provided in the source description, the reliability of the incident classification is maximized through the use of the hierarchical scoring system, which ensures consistent categorization based on the most severe act reported.

Factor Analysis

Formal factor analysis results are not explicitly detailed in the source documentation. However, the SVoCW instrument is implicitly structured around distinct behavioral factors that inherently correspond to the severity of the victimization act (e.g., penetration versus touching) and the mechanism of perpetration (e.g., physical force/threat versus psychological coercion).

The implementation of a hierarchical scoring system serves as a functional proxy for a severity-based factor structure. This system conceptually orders items, placing acts like forced sexual intercourse at the most severe level, followed by other forms of forced contact, and finally, incidents involving only sexual coercion.

Instrument

Test Type: Screening and Incident Report Instrument (Interview-based)

Format: Structured interview utilizing a “yes-no” format for the initial 11 screening questions. Each affirmative response triggers a detailed, structured incident report.

Language Available: English (Original development language).

Population Group: Non-clinical population (specifically students).

Age Group: Typically 18–25 (Traditional college age).

Population Details: College women enrolled in various academic institutions.

Test Methodology: The SVoCW employs a rigorous two-stage process. Stage one uses 11 screening questions to identify any occurrence of unwanted sexual contact since the academic term began. Stage two involves completing a comprehensive incident report for each reported event, capturing detailed data on the type, severity (completed, attempted, threatened), context, and victim response/reporting behaviors. The final classification relies on a hierarchical scoring system, ensuring the incident is cataloged by the most severe act that occurred (e.g., classifying an event as forced sexual intercourse even if it included lesser acts of coercion).

Keywords

Sexual assault measurement, Campus violence, Victimization survey, Forced sex, Sexual victimization, Psychological assessment, Coercion scale, Higher education research.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in source material.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not provided in source material.

Correspondence Address: Not provided in source material.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 1999 (Year of foundational publication).

Permissions and Fee: The SVoCW instrument is frequently utilized in criminology and public health research. Researchers are advised to contact the original authors or the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) for specific usage permissions. The instrument is documented publicly in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s compendium of assessment tools.

The scale can be found on pages 44-45 of Measuring Intimate Partner Violence Victimization and Perpetration: A Compendium of Assessment Tools. The original PDF can be downloaded here: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/pub-res/IPV_Compendium.pdf

Reference’s

• Belknap JB, Fisher BS, Cullen FT. The development of a comprehensive measure of the sexual victimization of college women. Violence Against Women 1999;5:185–214.

• Fisher BS, Cullen FT. Measuring the sexual victimization of women: evolution, current controversies, and future research. Criminal Justice 2000;4:317–390.

• Fisher BS, Cullen FT, Turner MG. The sexual victimization of college women. Washington (DC): Dept. of Justice (US), National Institute of Justice; 2000. Report No.: NCJ 182369.

Items of the Sexual Victimization of College Women

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

1. Since school began in the Fall, has anyone made you have sexual intercourse by using force or threatening to harm you or someone close to you? Just so there is no mistake, by intercourse I mean putting a penis in your vagina.

2. Since school began in the Fall, has anyone made you have oral sex by force or threat of harm? By oral sex, I mean did someone’s mouth or tongue make contact with your vagina or anus or did your mouth or tongue make contact with someone else’s genitals or anus.

3. Since school began in the Fall, has anyone made you have anal sex by force or threat of harm? By anal sex, I mean putting a penis in your anus or rectum.

4. Since school began in the Fall, has anyone ever used force or threat of harm to sexually penetrate you with a foreign object? By this, I mean for example, placing a bottle or finger in your vagina or anus?

5. Since school began in the Fall, has anyone attempted but not succeeded in making you take part in any of the unwanted sexual experiences that I have just asked you about? For example, did anyone threaten or try but not succeed to have vaginal, oral, or anal sex with you or try unsuccessfully to penetrate your vagina or anus with a foreign object or finger?

6. Not counting the types of sexual contact already mentioned, have you experienced any unwanted or uninvited touching of a sexual nature since school began in the Fall? This includes forced kissing, touching of private parts, grapping, fondling, and rubbing up against you in a sexual way, even if it is over your clothes. Remember this could include anyone from strangers to people you know well. Have any incidents of unwanted or uninvited touching of a sexual nature happened to you since school began in the Fall?

7. Since school began in the Fall, has anyone attempted or threatened but not succeeded in unwanted or uninvited touching of a sexual nature?

I have been asking you about unwanted sexual contact that involved force or threats of force against you. Sometimes unwanted sexual contact may be attempted using threats of nonphysical punishment, promises of rewards if you complied sexually, or simply continual verbal pressure.

9. Since school began in the Fall, has anyone made or tried to make you have sexual intercourse or sexual contact when you did not want to by making threats of nonphysical punishment such as lowering a grade, being demoted or fired from a job, damaging your reputation, or being excluded from a group for failure to comply with requests for any type of sexual activity?

10. Since school began in the Fall, has anyone made or tried to make you have sexual intercourse or sexual contact when you did not want to by making promises of rewards such as raising a grade, being hired or promoted, being given a ride or class notes, or getting help with course work from a fellow student if you complied sexually?

11. Since school began in the Fall, has anyone made or tried to make you have sexual intercourse or sexual contact when you did not want to by simply being overwhelmed by someone’s continual pestering and verbal pressure?

12. Not counting any incidents we have already discussed, have you experienced any other type of unwanted or uninvited sexual contact since school began in the Fall? Remember, this could include sexual experiences that may or may not have been reported to the police or other officials, which were the strangers or people you know, in a variety of locations both on- and off-campus, and while you were awake or when you were asleep, drunk, or otherwise incapacitated.