The Influence of Sexuality Education on the Sexual Knowledge and Attitudes of Adolescents in Busan, Korea

Adolescents experience intense and vigorous physical changes, and have a natural curiosity about sexual matters. To satisfy their curiosity, they obtain sexual information mostly from their friends and from lascivious media, especially websites on the internet. Consequently, they obtain incorrect knowledge and distorted sexual views. Thus, the purpose of this study was to compile a comprehensive sexuality education program and to evaluate its influence with the aim of bringing about an effective increase in the sexual knowledge and enhancement of the sexual attitudes of adolescents in Korea. The Randomized Solomon four-group design was used. Two experimental groups and two control groups were selected from two different co-educated middle schools. The experimental group was exposed to the sexuality education program which was presented weekly for fifteen consecutive sessions for 45 minutes each, while the control group received reading matter similar in content to the program, to reduce the Hawthorne effect. A questionnaire evaluated adolescents’ knowledge of and attitudes towards sexuality. The effect of the program increased the adolescents’ knowledge of sexuality and brought a positive change in their sexual attitudes. For this reason the sexuality education program for adolescents with its comprehensive content should be presented to learners in an interactive style.