Unblurring the lines of sexual consent with a college student-driven sexual consent education campaign

Objective: To test the effectiveness of a college student-driven sexual consent education campaign to improve college students' sexual consent understanding. Participants: Undergraduate students (N = 992) at a large, public Midwestern university between March and December 2015. Methods: Three online survey questionnaires assessing relevant outcome measures were distributed to the university's undergraduate student population before, during, and after the campaign's implementation over two consecutive academic semesters. Results: Exposure to the campaign and the sexual consent understanding of the student population improved over time. College men and members of university-affiliated social sororities or fraternities resulted in greater improvement than their respective counterparts (i.e., college women, nonmembers). Conclusions: Sexual consent education campaigns for college students that are student-driven and address relevant sociocultural factors while authentically interacting with students can improve students' sexual consent understanding. These type of campaigns also have the opportunity to reach historically hard-to-reach audiences, such as college men.