Some Ideas for My Research Design
In March 2017, a sex education textbook for primary school students sparked controversy. The series of textbooks, Cherishing Life: Sexual Health Education Readers for Primary School Students, written by the Children’s Sex Education Group of Beijing Normal University, was challenged by parents as ‘large-scale’ and ‘unhealthy’. In the end, the textbooks were withdrawn. In fact, this series of teaching materials is not as bad as parents have questioned. It is just a scientific way to teach children how to know themselves, respect themselves and protect themselves, and some reports even called it ‘China’s best set of sex education materials’, but it was withdrawn.
According to many surveys and studies, the incidence of precocious puberty among Chinese children is on the rise year by year due to a variety of factors, such as dietary habits, family environment, living habits, and parent-child relationships. In recent years, the number of young students infected with HIV has been on the rise, the number of adolescents engaging in unsafe sex, unwanted pregnancies and induced abortions has remained high, and gender inequality in society, fear of romance, marriage are all prevalent and closely related to sexual safety, sexual health and sexual attitudes.
Sex education should be a systematic programme, with a complete curriculum framework, teaching content, teaching objectives, teaching materials and teaching evaluation, just like any other educational programme. At present, most of the contents related to sex education in our schools are incorporated into the compulsory education curriculum in the form of scattered fragments, and the contents of sex education only appear in front of the students in the form of partial focus and one-sided presentation in these courses, so there is a lack of teaching materials and other related contents for sex education.
AI is able to understand human intentions and emotions through machine learning and simulate dialogues with strong interactivity. Taking Chat GPT as an example, it can provide a variety of educational forms, such as step-by-step instructions and simulated dialogues, to provide students with the possibility of dialogue scenarios and specific sex education methods. It can act as a dialogue agent for sex education experts, avoiding the embarrassment of students asking about sex. At the same time, considering China’s conservative culture, using an AI allows students to feel less scrutiny and pressure in the conversation compared to a teacher.
I would like to use quantitative analysis in positivism. Using a deductive research strategy, hypothesized that in Chinese junior and senior high schools, schools could use AI to promote students’ sex education, which is an inclusive and balanced approach to learning. It could utilize benefits of AI-facilitated sex education, and retain the basic guidance and expertise provided by trained and experienced educators. Appropriate data will then be collected through a questionnaire survey, targeting junior and senior high school students in China, and analyzed to test whether this is feasible.
Hi Meiling,
I think your ideas are really intersting and are truly innovative. I would suggest some caution in your research, specifically regarding ethics and AI prompting. I do not say this to scare you off the topic, but it is extremely important that you are aware of the issues regarding AI and harmful content that can be created etc. If you want to discuss this outside of this blog I am happy to chat with you. I work in OCSEA and specifically in the field of education and child protection. Your topic is very important and I would love to learn more and of course I would be VERY interested in your findings. Please do reach out if you need support.
Best, Carleigh
This is a very interesting post Meiling. I liked the idea of exploring AI within sex education. I can say from my personal experience that the sex education I received from my school has not been the best. The question here would remain how best we can ‘manage’ this interaction for students of different age-groups so that it is relevant and age-appropriate. For an AI platform, the sky is the limit frankly and that might over-whelm students who use the interface for their own explorations. Another question I can think of is what ‘knowledge’ are we communicating here? Is it only safe-sex practices and how-to’s or can it be more around meaningful intimate connections, respect & consent among partners and fostering self-love? I would love to hear more from you on this.
Wishing you all the best!
This is a really interesting approach to overcome the lack of communication that may be present due to cultural obstacles. I have been living in the Netherlands for the last five years so I can give you an insight into how a liberal society teach sex education and consent, just for contrast.