College athletes are considered to be a high sexual-risk group, as they use condoms less consistently (Wetherill & Fromme, 2007). The current study explored college athletes' intentions to use condoms within the framework of the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 2002). The sample consisted of 55 sexually experienced college athletes who completed an anonymous online questionnaire. College athletes' attitudes toward condoms' effectiveness in preventing HIV/STI infection, perceptions of support for condom use from important others, and perceived control over the decision to use condoms significantly predicted condom use intentions and explained 34% of the variance intentions. When receipt of pregnancy prevention information form their university was taken into consideration, the model explained 46% of the variance in athletes' condom use intentions. Overall, college athletes in this study had strong intentions to use condoms every time they had sex.
The theory of planned behavior was used in this study to determine the intentions of undergraduates to use condoms during sexual activity. This theory states that behavior is a result of intention and intention is influenced by attitude toward the behavior, subjective norm, and perceived control of the behavior. Three hypotheses related to the theory were tested. The first hypothesis states that the theory of planned behavior can be used to predict intentions to use comdoms. Results provided partial support for this hypothesis: Perceived control was not significantly related to behavioral intentions. A second hypothesis was that the theory of planned behavior is a better predictor than an earlier version of the theory, the theory of reasoned action. Results showed that both theories could equally predict condom usage among undergraduates. A third hypothesis was that the underlying beliefs of males and females, as well as those who intend to use condoms and those don't intend to use condoms, would differ. Multivariate analyses showed that these differences were most significant regarding the outcome beliefs of the subjects. Two other hypotheses of interest are whether single undergraduates with more than one partner are more likely to use condoms than those with only one partner, and whether those who rate their chances of getting AIDS as high are more likely to use condoms than those who rate their chances as low. Results indicate no support for the above hypotheses.
Sexual violence is a problem on college campuses across the United States. In the past few years, federal and state legislation has been drafted in order to address campus sexual violence. A main feature of this legislation addresses an important communicative construct related to students' sexual behavior: sexual consent. Colleges and universities are adopting an affirmative-standard of consent, which emphasizes that consent for sexual activity be communicated verbally or via unambiguous actions, mutual, voluntary, enthusiastic, and ongoing throughout the sexual encounter. Literature has explored how college students communicate and interpret sexual consent, but antecedents to sexual consent behaviors, particularly affirmative consent, are largely unknown. The current investigation seeks to longitudinally explore the antecedents to college students' affirmative sexual consent behaviors (i.e., nonverbal, initiating, verbal). Using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) as a theoretical framework, hypotheses predicted that at Time 1 (T1) attitudes, norms, and perceived behavioral control would positively and significantly predict students' (T1) intentions to communicate affirmative consent to their partner. Then, it was predicted that at Time 2 (T2), thirty days later, intentions to communicate consent from T1 would positively and significantly predict college students' communication of affirmative consent to their partner during their most recent sexual encounter. The final matched (i.e., completed T1 and T2 surveys) sample included two hundred twenty-five (N = 225) college students who had engaged in sexual activity during the 30 days between survey distributions. Results from the path analyses support the theoretically driven hypotheses for all three affirmative consent behaviors, and demonstrate that subjective norms and perceived control are important and strong determinants of students' communication of affirmative sexual consent. Furthermore, multi-group invariance tested the potential moderating effects of three individual, two dyadic, and two environmental/contextual variables on the strength of path coefficients between TPB constructs for all three sexual consent behaviors. Only individual and environmental/contextual variables significantly moderated relationships within the TPB for the three models. Results are discussed with regard to theoretical implications as well as practical implications for university health educators and other health professionals. Additionally, limitations and future directions are noted.
