APPLICATION OF PERSUASIVE MULTIMEDIA TO RAISE CHILDREN'S AWARENESS OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE AMONG PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Children are easily exposed to various types of abuse. It is because they have limited knowledge on personal safety. In addition, they do not realize that it is unethical for an adult to abuse their body. Consequently, they should be educated on such abuse. Accordingly, this study devises and develops a persuasive multimedia learning application (PMLA). It incorporates persuasive and multimedia principles in educating children with basic knowledge of child sexual abuse (CSA). With the principles, PMLA demonstrates (to children) the steps to avoid dangerous situations in order to increase their awareness of CSA. Quasi experiment using pre-test and post-test were carried out to assess children's awareness level, in which data were collected using Knowledge and Awareness Survey (KAS). A total of 222 primary school students' aged between 7 and 9 years old were randomly selected to participate in the study. Two moderating variables, which are school location (urban/rural) and gender involve in this study. In the end, results of ANCOVA test show that there is no significant difference in student's awareness between school locations and genders. Additionally, results also indicate that students from both locations and genders demonstrate an increment in the mean for the post-test. However, it was found that girls are more responsive in both tests than the boys.