The Perception of Premarital Sex Among Students in a Religious Moral Based University

Previous studies have shown that premarital sex is prevalent among youth in schools anduniversities. Most institutions use methods such as rules, seminars, or sex preventionprograms to help prevent students from engaging in premarital sex. Not many institutionshave used religious moral development activities to prevent premarital sex among youngpeople. The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between religious moraldevelopment on perception of premarital sex among students in a religious based universityin Thailand, and to also explore the factors that shape students‟ perceptions of premarital sex.The research design of this study was quantitative, non-experimental and descriptive, usingthe survey method of data collection. Permission was granted from the university researchcommittee for distribution of the survey through the university intranet, and the data wasanalyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The total number ofparticipants was 103 undergraduate students from the international programme.The findings of the study suggest that most university students are against sex beforemarriage. Moral development activities taught them not to have premarital sex. Participantsresponses showed that the factor that most impacted perceptions of premarital sex was theinternet. The findings also suggested that movie/television viewing, is an important factorthat shapes perceptions of premarital sex. The result show that moral development activitiesand perceptions of premarital sex are related, however it was a weak correlation (r=.03).Moral development activities may have a small influence on students‟ perceptions ofpremarital sex.There is a need for improvement of moral development activities such as the implementationof more discussions on premarital sex to help students understand the value of sex. Futureresearch in this area could use qualitative approaches to examine the factors that impactperceptions of premarital sex, and regression analysis to investigate the influence of moraldevelopment on perceptions of premarital sex