QUALITY AND EFFICIENCY IN TEENAGERS' SEXUAL EDUCATION. ONLINE LEARNING AND FACE TO FACE LEARNING

Abstract

The virtual learning environment is extremely suitable both for surveying adolescents' sexual concerns and for specific educational intervention, because the privacy of this experience. In a virtual environment, teenagers feel freer to express their counselling needs than in the formal environment of a tutoring class. This study surveys the evolution of the frequency of adolescents' interventions during a calendar year as well as the topics referred to on the forum as a non-formal environment and in the formal environment, school. The methods selected for this study are content analysis of adolescent communication in the virtual environment, thematic analysis and expository methods for students' classroom interventions. We took into consideration the European Guidelines on Sexual Education (2010) regarding education in the classroom, on the following dimensions: providing information, specific skills development and training of attitudes favorable to respecting life. The issues concerned: body development in ontogenesis, sexuality, fertility and reproduction, communication and relationships, norms, values and rights. The study was conducted in a technical college from Brasov. If in the beginning of the study there were 84 unique visitors on the discussion forum, a year later they increased to 2088. As concerning the topics covered in class, the beneficiaries were a total of 300 students. The study shows that although the contents discussed in the virtual environment are the same as those addressed in the formal environment, the topics in the virtual environment were more complex and with a high level of privacy. It was found that the frequency of accessing the forum follows the school year's chart (during holidays, the number of visits and interventions decreases significantly).The study concludes that the two forms of intervention - the formal classroom intervention and the one in the virtual environment are not mutually exclusive but complementary, increasing the quality and efficiency of the intervention.