Degree Level

B.A.

Program

Honors

Abstract

The literature has looked at the knowledge of child maltreatment amongst certain positions, i.e., teachers, caregivers (Weegar and Romano, 2019; Salloum et. al, 2019). The current study aims to find out how much knowledge the general public has of child maltreatment, including the differences of knowledge among those who are trained, who are parents to minors, who have a close relationship with a minor, and those who are/do not. There are five hypotheses. First, it was expected that the general population had a lack of knowledge of child maltreatment, that their knowledge was not greater than chance. Secondly, it was expected that participants who are parents or caregivers to minors would have a significant difference of knowledge compared to those who are not. Third, it was expected that participants that have a close relationship with a minor would have a significant difference of knowledge compared to those who do not. Fourth, it was expected that participants who had prior training in recognizing child maltreatment would have more knowledge than those who have not. Lastly, it was expected that participants who work with children on a regular, professional basis would have a significant difference of knowledge compared to those who do not. H1, H2, and H3 yielded nonsignificant results, while H4 and H5 had significant results. The author highlights that adults who have a close relationship with a minor do not have more knowledge of child maltreatment than those who do not, and that is a cause for concern.

Publication Date

Spring 3-22-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Included in

Psychology Commons

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