College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

Winter 3-22-2019

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Megan Greeson, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Goran Kuljanin, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

Suzanne Bell, Ph.D.

Abstract

Sexual Assault Response Teams (SARTs) are collaborative multidisciplinary groups designed to coordinate the response to sexual assault. SARTs were created through efforts to address issues related to sexual assault response, such as negative treatment of survivors by responders, low prosecution rates, and disorganized relationships among responders. The goal of SARTs is to improve cross-system collaboration in the response to sexual assault in communities. Although SARTs tend to have similar goals and foci, teams vary in the formal structures and the collaborative activities they adopt. Therefore, it is important to examine the characteristics of SARTs and how they relate to collaboration on these teams. Guided by community coalition action theory (CCAT), the purpose of this study was to examine how SARTs’ membership breadth, formal structures, and leaders/coordinators predicted teams’ engagement in collaborative activities. The researcher analyzed secondary data from a large-scale study conducted by Campbell, Greeson, Bybee, and Neal (2013) and funded by the National Institute of Justice. Phone interviews were conducted with a national random sample of n = 172 SARTs. Ordinal logistic regression analysis examined the effects of SART membership breadth on SARTs’ engagement in collaborative activities. Additionally, the presence of a leader or coordinator and the number of formal structures used by the team were also examined as moderators of the relationship between membership breadth and collaborative activities. Findings from this study suggest ways of enhancing collaboration and future research for SARTs.

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