Development and preliminary validation of The Multidimensional Sexual Coercion Questionnaire (MSCQ)

Abstract

The goal of this study is to present the development and validation of a sexual coercion assessment instrument for college students, the Multidimensional Sexual Coercion Questionnaire (MSCQ). An exploratory factor analysis for ordinal Likert data, followed by a confirmatory factor analysis in 762 college students, revealed seven factors. These pertained to commonly noted tactics such as pressure to have sex, exploitation, relational manipulation as well as less commonly measured tactics of humiliation and two clusters of tactics pertaining to forced compliance based on past coercion. Although several other measures exist, this measure was designed specifically for college students and therefore includes a wider array of tactics than generally considered. The measure also makes an attempt to include more nuanced and difficult-to-measure coercion strategies. The MSCQ is likely to be of interest to researchers and clinicians who wish to consider a more nuanced analysis of sexual coercion dynamics among college student, young adult and general populations.