Sex education: evaluation and recommendations for future study

This article briefly outlines the current rationale, goals, and scope of sex education programs. The available research on the effectiveness of these programs is reviewed. A majority of the program evaluation studies in sex education suffer from poor research design. Often no formal outcome assessment has been undertaken. However, the information available largely supports the notion that sex education can produce certain beneficial results, specifically in the areas of attitude, experience, and knowledge change. Recommendations for future research stress the need for more rigorous outcome evaluation, long-term follow-up, comparison of differing methods, and more detailed subjective evaluations. Of special note is that despite the fact that sex education is purported to be a preventive approach by most theorists in the area, prevention-oriented outcome assessments are conspicuously absent in the literature.