2003 IMTA Proceedings - International Military Testing Association

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Instrumentation
Unprofessional, Gender-Related Behaviors
The Sexual Experiences Questionnaire - DoD - Shortened Version (SEQ-DoD-S; Stark,
Chernyshenko, Lancaster, Drasgow, & Fitzgerald, 2002) consists of 16 behavioral items that
assess respondents' unwanted sex-related experiences that occurred during the last 12 months
involving military personnel, or civilian employees/contractors in the military workplace. The
SEQ-DoD-S assesses four general categories of unprofessional, gender-related behaviors. Sexist
Behavior (4 items) includes gender-based discriminatory behaviors such as offensive sexist
remarks and differential, negative treatment based on gender. Crude/Offensive Behavior (4 items)
is more explicitly sexual in nature and includes behaviors such as repeatedly telling sexual
stories or jokes and making crude sexual remarks. Unwanted Sexual Attention (4 items) includes
unwanted sexual behaviors such as repeated requests for dates and touching or stroking. Sexual
Coercion (4 items) is defined as implicit or explicit demands for sexual favors through the threat
of negative job-related consequences or the promise of job-related benefits or bribes. 6 Responses
were provided on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 0 (never) to 4 (very often). Higher
scores indicated more frequent UGRB or more types of UGRB. The 16-item SEQ-DoD-S is
highly reliable, (coefficient alphas for all scales can be seen in Table 1) and considerable validity
information is available.
Retaliation
Respondents were asked to indicate whether or not, as a result of any unprofessional,
gender-related behavior, or response to that behavior (e.g., reporting, confronting, avoiding),
they had experienced any of 11 types of retaliatory behaviors. Three of these behaviors are
classified as personal retaliation (e.g., gossiped about you in an unkind or negative way) and
eight as professional (e.g., given an unfair performance evaluation). Responses were arranged
along a 3-point response scale and were recoded such that 1 = "no", 2 = "don't know", and 3 =
"yes," based on research indicating that a "don't know" option tends to act as a midpoint
(Drasgow, Fitzgerald, Magley, Waldo, & Zickar, 1999). Higher scores reflected greater amounts
of retaliation. Although the scale contains two types of retaliation, confirmatory factor analysis
indicated that the personal and professional factors were highly correlated; thus the scale is
considered to be unidimensional (Ormerod et al., in preparation).
Reporting
Five items assessed whether and to whom (e.g., supervisor; office designed to handle
such complaints) the respondent reported the unprofessional, gender-related behavior. The items
were scored dichotomously, with higher scores indicating that the person reported such behavior
through one or more channels.
Coping Responses to Harassment
This scale asks respondents to indicate the extent to which they engaged in specific nonreporting
coping strategies in response to unprofessional, gender-related behavior. The 17 items
comprise four individual scales (cognitive avoidance, confrontation, social support, behavioral
avoidance). However, for current purposes, all items were combined onto one response scale to
represent the frequency of the targets' non-reporting responses to UGRB. Responses were provided
on a 5-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 0 (not at all) to 4 (very large extent). Higher scores
indicated that the respondent engaged in more frequent coping responses to the UGRB.
6
Two additional items asking about sexual assault and an item asking about "other unwanted gender-related behavior"
were not utilized in these analyses.
45 th Annual Conference of the International Military Testing Association
Pensacola, Florida, 3-6 November 2003