Assessing Attitudes and Knowledge Toward Sexual Intercourse of Adolescent Students Darcy Castleberry Oklahoma State University Timothy Baghurst, PhD Oklahoma State University Abstract Effective sexual education is important for adolescent students (Abraham, Henderson, & Der, 2004). A comprehensive sexual education program provides students with information about safe sexual practices that can help students make more intelligent choices when becoming sexually active (Wisnieski, 2013). Assessing the knowledge and attitudes of students may increase their awareness of risks and knowledge about sexual activity while providing educators with an understanding of what does and does not need to be taught to students. This article presents an overview of current research associated with adolescent sex education, and provides an explanation of how the Sex Knowledge and Attitude Test for Adolescents (SKAT-A) can be used to measure students’ knowledge and attitudes toward sexual intercourse. Using such a measure might serve to improve the knowledge and attitudes of adolescent students towards sexual intercourse and provide an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of educational interventions. Introduction The number of teens who are sexually active continues to increase. According to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) conducted in 2011, 51% of high school students in Oklahoma were sexually active and 43% did not use a condom during their last sexual intercourse. Sex education in schools is needed so that students are knowledgeable about the risks of being sexually active at a young age. For example, sexually transmitted disease risks increase with the number of partners a person has (Finer, Darroch, & Singh, 1999). This is concerning given that 17% of sexually active youth in Oklahoma reported having had sexual intercourse with four or more persons (YRBS, 2011). Such a statistic lends credence to the suggestion that further sexual knowledge is needed and students should become aware of the risks associated with sexual intercourse. Effective education should not only provide students with the risks associated with sexual intercourse, but provide education that encourages greater knowledge about sex in general. For example, students can be made aware that romance and sexual intercourse need not be synonymous, and that many young people regret early sexual experiences (Abraham, Henderson, & Der, 2004). The knowledge of other options may lead to a decrease in unwanted sexual intercourse and a decrease of students participating in sexual activities at a young age. Another alternative that needs to be presented to students is the use of condoms. The most effective way to prevent sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and unwanted pregnancy in sexually active adolescents is through the use of condoms (Christ, Raszka, & Dillon, 1998). Comprehensive sexual education programs that include condom use instruction have been shown to delay sexual intercourse and increase the chance that students who are sexually active will use a condom the next time they engage in sexual intercourse (Eisenberg, Bernat, Bearinger, & Resnick, 2009). Attitudes toward sexual intercourse in adolescents can be influenced by a myriad of 22