Formative Research With College Men to Inform Content and Messages for a Web-Based Sexual Violence Prevention Program

To combat the high rates of sexual violence on college campuses, prevention programming should be theoretically driven, persuasive, and salient, and should provide messages that counter negative normative beliefs supportive of sexual violence. We describe qualitative formative research that identifies themes as a means to inform messages and content for a Web-based sexual violence prevention program. To illustrate the process, we used qualitative analysis of eight focus groups (N = 48) with male undergraduates from a large urban, public, Southeastern university. Analyses focused on how men interpret sexual interest, the meaning and methods of obtaining effective consent for sex, sexual encounters that involve alcohol, barriers to and facilitators of bystander intervention, and intervening techniques. We demonstrate how positive and negative themes identified in the analysis can be incorporated into programming segments.