Measuring campus sexual misconduct and its context: The Administrator-Researcher Campus Climate Consortium (ARC3) survey.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE\nIn response to The White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault s recommendations, the Administrator-Researcher Campus Climate Collaborative (ARC3) has curated an empirically sound, no-cost campus climate survey for U.S. institutions of higher education. The ARC3 survey contains 19 modules that assess a range of Title IX violations, including sexual harassment, dating violence, and sexual misconduct victimization and perpetration; sexual misconduct prevention efforts, resources, and responses; and key predictors and possible outcomes of sexual misconduct. This article describes the ARC3 survey development and pilot test psychometric data.\n\n\nMETHOD\nA total of 909 students attending one of three U.S. universities responded to the survey; 85% of students who began the survey completed it. Students completed the ARC3 survey in slightly less than 30 min, on average.\n\n\nRESULTS\nThe majority of measures produced evidence for at least acceptable internal consistency levels (α > .70), with only two short item sets having marginal reliability (α = .65-.70). Correlations among scales matched expectations set by the research literature. Students generally did not find the survey distressing; in fact, students viewed the climate assessment as important and personally meaningful.\n\n\nCONCLUSION\nThe survey performed sufficiently well in pilot testing to recommend its use with U.S. college populations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).