Cognitive Susceptibility to Initiating Sexual Intercourse (L’Engle, 2005)

• Populations: adolescents
• Age ranges: 12-15
• Languages: English
• Countries: United States

Items

• 1: How likely is it that you will have sex in the next year?
• 2: How likely is it that you will have sex while you are in high school?
• 3: If you had a boyfriend/girlfriend, how sure are you that you could refuse to have sex with him/her if you didn’t feel ready?
• 4: I think I’m ready to have sex.
• 5: I believe it is OK for people to have sex before marriage if they are in love.

Responses

Items 1 and 2 used a 4 point Likert-type scale, 1 = very unlikely to 4 = very likely

Item 3 used a 5 point Likert-type scale, 1 = extremely sure to 5 = not at all sure

Items 4 and 5 used a 5 point Likert type scale, 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree

Scoring

“Following the protocol used by Pierce and colleagues, susceptibility was indicated by lack of a firm commitment not to engage in risk behavior (Pierce et al., 1996; Pierce et al., 1995). First, responses to each of the five items were dichotomized to indicate whether a respondent was susceptible to initiating sexual intercourse (e.g., lacked a firm commitment not to engage in 
intercourse). If the response was not in the two lowest categories indicative of delaying sexual intercourse, the respondent was considered susceptible” (L’Engle, 2005).

Citations

L’Engle, K. L. (2005) SOCIALIZATION AND COGNITIVE SUSCEPTIBILITY TO INITIATING SEXUAL INTERCOURSE DURING ADOLESCENCE [Doctoral Dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill] Proquest Dissertations and Theses.