Gender balance, representativeness, and statistical power in sexuality research using undergraduate student samples

摘要

It is well-documented that a great deal of psychological research, including the study of sexual behavior, relies on undergraduate students* for its study participants (e.g., Landrum & Chastain, 1999; Miller, 1981; Owen, Rhoades, Stanley, & Fincham, 2010; Saks & Seiber, 1989). In many ways, undergraduate students are an ideal sample for understanding sexual behavior as this is developmentally consistent for young adults. Beyond providing an inexpensive and readily available source of research subjects, the use of student pools has also been justified by the educational benefits it provides to students who participate, such as increased knowledge about contemporary psychology and research ethics (Rosell et al., 2005). However, there are also a couple of central concerns with the use of undergraduate student participants, namely gender imbalances and the representativeness of the samples。