Initial Evidence for the Reliability and Validity of the Sexual Experiences Survey-Short Form Perpetration (SES-SFP) in College Men
Introduction: Estimates of sexual perpetration in college men vary widely, partially due to a lack of reliable and valid measures of sexual perpetration. This study provides psychometric data on the Sexual Experiences Survey – Short Form Perpetration (SES-SFP), a revision of one of the most widely used measures of sexual perpetration, in a sample of college men. Methods: Participants (n = 402) completed a web survey containing the study measures; a subset of 66 participants completed the SES-SFP again two weeks later.Results: In examining test-retest reliability, most (90.7%) participants were classified correctly using dichotomous scores of sexually aggressive behavior (yes/no). However, test-retest agreement for category scores was poor (0 – 50.0%). Test-retest correlations were largest for lifetime category scores, r = .69 and smallest for lifetime dichotomous scores, r = .59. Regarding validity, SES-SFP scores were positively associated with measures of partner violence and trait aggression and negatively associated with a measure of rape empathy. Conclusions: Our results provide initial evidence of internal consistency and convergent evidence of validity for the SES-SFP in college men but question the measure’s test-retest reliability. The severity of tactics used to coerce sexually aggressive behaviors was more strongly associated with rape empathy than sexual outcome severity scores, indicating utility of assessing coercive tactics. Additional research is needed regarding the psychometric properties of the SES-SFP and other measures of sexual perpetration in order to accurately assess rates of these behaviors and inform preventive interventions.