Children’s Knowledge of Abuse Questionnaires (CKAQ)-Short: Two Brief Ten-Item Measures of Knowledge about Child Sexual Abuse Concepts

ABSTRACT

Child-focused sexual abuse prevention programs were developed in the 1970s in response to significant concerns across North America with respect to children being sexually abused. While program evaluations are common, measures to evaluate these programs, most of which are offered to children in elementary schools, are not widely available. This article reviews the key concepts covered in CSA prevention education programs that comprise the constructs used to measure knowledge/attitude gains post-program. Available measures are reviewed and the psychometrics of two new 10-item versions (one for students in grades 1–2; the other for grades 3–6) of the CKAQ-33, a commonly used tool, are presented and psychometrically assessed with a sample of 7646 elementary school students.

KEYWORDS:

• Child sexual abuse
• prevention programs
• outcome measures
• psychometric assessment

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Danielle Aubry, CEO of Calgary Communities Against Sexual Abuse, for steadfastly supporting the “WDYT?”™ program and this research. Thanks also to the “WDYT?”™ educators for engaging young children in learning child sexual abuse education concepts and collecting the data for this project.

Disclosure of Interest

No conflicts to report

Ethical standards and informed consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation [institutional and national] and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all parents of students included in the study.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Leslie M. Tutty

Leslie M. Tutty, Ph.D., is a Professor Emerita with the Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.