Effect of formal sex education on the sexual knowledge and attitudes of Colombian medical students.

The effect of a course in human sexuality on the sexual knowledge and attitudes of a fifth-semester class of Colombian medical students is described. The research design was a quasi-experimental one of the nonequivalent control group type, and the research instrument was Lief and Reed's SKAT. In evaluating the results, emphasis was given to the material, rather than statistical, significance of differences found. The attention of sex education researchers is called to the inconvenience of relying on statistical methods for assessing the effects of instruction in human sexuality. On the whole, the cautious conclusion can be made that the course produced a materially and statistically significant increase in the subjects' sexual knowledge, as well as a further liberalization of their sexual attitudes. Implications for evaluation of sex education programs are briefly discussed.