FieldFutures team & collaborators publish new study demonstrating tangible benefits of harassment prevention their training approach
Interactive training programs can help prepare scientists to combat harassment and assault in fieldwork, a recent study conducted in collaboration with researchers at UC Santa Cruz, Duke University, California Fish and Wildlife, and Oregon State University found. The study examined the impacts of a 90-minute interactive training delivered to more than 600 California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) staff who conduct fieldwork across California.
Fieldwork, a crucial tool in scientific research, has often been marred by safety concerns, particularly for gender-based or sexual harassment and assault, with as many as 63% of participants reporting experiencing harassment during fieldwork. This new study aimed to assess the effectiveness of an innovative training program, originally developed in 2018 by field scientists at UCSC, designed to prevent harassment in the field.
The study, titled “Testing the effectiveness of interactive training on sexual harassment and assault in field science,” published this week in Scientific Reports, sheds light on the crucial role of field-specific interventions in preventing sexual harassment and assault, particularly for historically marginalized identity groups including women and people of color.
The study compared survey responses from CDFW staff before and after receiving the training, as well as 1-2 months after their training, to gauge both immediate and long-term effects. The study revealed that participants reported more knowledge about and ability to prevent, intervene in, and report harassment and assault after taking the training compared to before. Importantly, these gains persisted several months post-training.
Interestingly, the study also found disparities related to gender and race, with women and people of color generally scoring lower in self-assessment compared to their male and white counterparts.
Why would people who are most likely experience harassment feel like they are less prepared to prevent or respond to it? The answer, the authors hypothesize, is related to the famed “Dunning-Kruger effect” – a cognitive phenomenon where people with limited competence or experience with an overestimate their abilities. For people who don’t experience harassment regularly, this might seem like a really simple problem to solve. But for those people who do experience harassment on a daily basis, they know that it can be incredibly difficult to intervene.”
The authors make recommendations about how organizations like agencies, universities, nonprofits and others can help shift their culture toward preventing harassment, including removing offenders, hiring more people with marginalized identities, and implementing interactive, engaging training programs like the one they asses in the study. The study's findings underscore the potential of peer-led interactive interventions in fostering a safer workplace culture in scientific fieldwork settings.
