The 1995 Department of Defense Sexual Harassment Survey: Overview and Methodology

Abstract

In 1995, the Department of Defense (DoD) conducted a survey of more than 90,000 active-duty personnel in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard to collect information on their attitudes, opinions, and experiences regarding sexual harassment. One purpose was to determine how sexual harassment and gender issues had changed since 1988, when the first DoD survey provided baseline data. A second purpose was to broaden the understanding of sexual harassment and gender issues in the military environment in 1995. This article provides background for the 1995 survey, discusses the design of the survey and the sampling, and briefly introduces the articles in this special issue of Military Psychology.

Notes

1 Bastian, Lancaster, and Reyst (1996) reported preliminary results of the survey using slightly different measures. Those measures differed in (a) being binomial indicators of whether any behavior in the category was experienced, (b) using slightly different names for the first three categories, and (c) splitting the fourth category of the SEQ–DoD into two subcategories for analysis. Factor analysis indicates rape and attempted rape items are part of the unwanted sexual attention category; however, Bastian et al. treated these items as a separate analysis category because of the distinctive nature of the behaviors.