The influence of sexuality education on the sexual knowledge and attitudes of adolescents in Busan, Korea

Abstract

Adolescence is a period of physical, emotional, and social development that represents the transition from childhood toward adulthood. Adolescents therefore experience intense and vigorous physical changes and an increased awareness of their own sexuality. They are also in a physical and mental period of preparation to become a social being, and have a natural curiosity about sexual matters. To satisfy their sexual curiosity, they obtain sexual information mostly from their friends and from lascivious media, especially websites on the internet. Consequently, they obtain incorrect knowledge and distorted sexual views. Moreover, adolescents in Korea, especially in the middle period of adolescence, are much more tolerant and open about many aspects of sexual attitudes and behaviour. They now engage in sexual relations at an earlier age as a result of the weakening of sexual morals and materialism in Korean society. They are exposed to sexual risks such as unwanted pregnancy, abortion, STDs, and HIV/Aids. It is therefore important for adolescents to be educated on sexual matters, and to protect themselves against sexual risks. They should have accurate sexual knowledge to make critical sexual decisions, and to form positive sexual attitudes to enhance sexual behaviour. The purpose of this study was to investigate the sexual knowledge and attitudes towards sexuality of adolescents in Korea, so as to compile a comprehensive programme in sexuality education and to evaluate the influence of the comprehensive sexuality education programme on the knowledge and attitudes of adolescents in Korea. The Randomized Solomon four-group design was used as the method of this study. The selected sample consisted of two groups for the experimental group and two groups for the control group, from two randomly selected co-educated middle schools in Youngdo-gu in Busan, Korea. The experimental group was exposed to the sexuality education programme, while the control group received reading matter similar in content to the sexuality education programme, to reduce the Hawthorne effect. A questionnaire was compiled by the researcher to evaluate adolescents' knowledge of and attitudes towards sexuality. A comprehensive sexuality education programme was compiled based on the literature. The sexuality education programme consisted of fifteen sessions of 45 minutes each. A session was presented each week for fifteen consecutive weeks. A questionnaire was used to collect data on two occasions: one week before the programme was presented and again two weeks after the end of the programme. The data was analysed by means of a frequency analysis, t-tests and correlations by using the SPSS/PC Window 10.0 programme. The results of the research indicated that the effect of the sexuality education programme obviously increased the sexual knowledge adolescents and brought about a positive change in their sexual attitudes. It is therefore recommended that the sexuality education programme for adolescents with its comprehensive content should be presented in an interactive style to learners by a skilful sexuality education educator. The recommendations of this study focus on adolescents as the object of education, the sexuality education programme, the educator and general recommendations.