Sexual harassment in Ecuadorian universities: content validation for instrument development

Abstract

Sexual harassment in institutions of higher education (IHE) is a problematic about which awareness and exploration is on the rise in Ecuador. However, there is a notorious lack of data to aid in estimating the magnitude of the phenomenon. This feeds into the idea that we are not dealing with a problem that needs to be prioritized. In this article, we describe the process for validating contents among experts for the construction of an instrument to measure the prevalence of this phenomenon. This process was carried out with the judgment of experts of the practices by the level of interrater agreement method. (Grant y Davis, 1996). We concluded that the content validation phase for experts is important for the development of instruments on sexual harassment because there are multiplicity of definitions and it isn’t clear the delimitation of the phenomenon. The panel of experts incorporated notions that are not contemplated in the literature. In reference to the hierarchy, emergent relationships in intersectional dynamics are included, something that cannot be left aside in the Ecuadorian context. The delimitation of practices related to content, effect, frequency, purpose, context and mode was also considered. Finally, the common approach favored having the same indicators to allow comparing results between universities in a feminist perspective.