Test of Adolescent Sexual Knowledge (Mackin & Perkhounkova, 2019)

General knowledge held by US adolescents concerning sex/sexual health, relationships, and safety, identifying which subjects in which collective knowledge is weakest. 69 Items / Ages 12-18

Populations: American adolescents
Age ranges: 12-18
Languages: Enlish
Countries: United States

Items

Subscales:

Anatomy and Physiology
Healthy Relationships
Identity
Personal Safety
Pregnancy and Reproduction
Puberty and Adolescents
STIs/HIV

69 total items, not presented in (Mackin & Perkhounkova, 2019), but example items from the intial item development are:

Which body part is part of a male’s body
Which part of the brain is responsible for puberty?

Responses:

Items used a 5-point Likert-type scale

Scoring

“Scoring of the TASK was based on the number and percentage of correct responses. Only one of the possible four response options was correct. Each item included a “don’t know” response option” (Mackin & Perkhounkova, 2019)

Citations

Melissa Lehan Mackin & Yelena Perkhounkova (2019) Development of the Test of Adolescent Sexual Knowledge Based on the National Sexuality Education Standards and Results of Pilot Testing, American Journal of Sexuality Education, 14:2, 212-232, DOI:10.1080/15546128.2018.1548990

Scoring breakdown

Measure development

Significant design input from young people
Cognitive interviews with young people
Expert input

Validity

Green: Face validity
Unknown: Convergent validity
Green: Construct validity

Reliability

Green: Internal consistency
Unknown: Test-retest

Ease of use

Unknown: Readability

Definitions

Face validity: How well a measure appears to represent the construct it is supposed to be measuring.

Convergent validity: How well a measure correlates with other hypothetically-related measures.

Construct validity: The extent to which a measure reflects the construct it was designed to evaluate.

Internal consistency: The extent to which items in a scale capture aspects of the same construct.

Test-retest: The degree to which measurement scores are consistent over a short period of time (usually 2 weeks).

Readability: The ease with which a reader can understand the questionnaire items.

Key

Green: Meets validation criteria
Red: Does not meet validation criteria
Unknown: Evidence not available