Locating and Using Sources

While researching the efficacy of sex education in public schools, I found an article by Douglas Kirby in the Journal of Sex Research. I determined that this was a credible source by noting the amount of times it has been cited and referenced by other researchers in their respective articles; also, the journal that this article appeared in is a peer-reviewed publication. Furthermore, the experiment was conducted in a thorough, precise manner, leading me to ultimately categorize this article as a scholarly source for my upcoming paper.

Kirby began by detailing the numerous proposed means of deterring adolescent unprotected sex, pregnancy and childbirth. These approaches differ in the amount of information they choose to divulge to the students. Kirby and his associates randomly selected 662 African American students in grades 6 and 7 from 4 public middle schools in low-income communities in the northeastern US. After obtaining consent from a parent or guardian, students were arranged by age and sex and randomly allocated to one of four research groups. The students then observed one of the five following instructional programs: an 8 hour abstinence-only educational program, an 8 hour safer sex-only program, an 8 hour comprehensive program, an 8 hour health-promotion control program, or a 12 hour comprehensive program. These instructional programs were highly structured, with periods for brainstorming, dialogue, debriefing, experiential group activities and skill-building exercises.

Data was collected by a self-report survey before the program interventions, immediately following the educational programs, and students later received 3-, 6-, 12-, 18-, and 24-month follow-up questionnaires. The questions were all carefully designed so that they were clear and appropriate for their audience.

Ultimately, the experiment demonstrated that abstinence-only intervention reduced sexual activity. Fewer abstinence-only participants than the control participants (no formal sex education) engaged in intercourse. However, abstinence-only education did not affect condom use. The other knowledge-based groups reduced reports of having multiple sexual partners compared to the control group, but no other significant differences between the knowledge group and the control group were found.

Kirby thus acknowledged that abstinence-only interventions may help in preventing adolescent sexual activity, but he warns that these results should not be interpreted to indicate that all abstinence-only sex education programs are effective.

With its mix of technical analysis of statistical data and a clear interpretation of the experimental results, I feel that this article is very rhetorically effective in both expressing the realities of the experiment and the real-life consequences of its results.