The tools: contents of talking about sexNine quantitative research focused on the contents of parent-child communication about sex. Six articles focused on parent-child pairs. Numerous researchers have used a variety of different topics to assess whether or not parents have ever discussed the topic with their children. For example, Miller et al. they established ten content elements and ten process elements of communication between mothers and adolescents. (1998a), with the aim of measuring which sex-related topics were discussed and how their content was conveyed. The same research team used the tools with various groups of participants. For example, Dutra et al. (1999) used content and process instruments to measure not only mothers' and adolescents' communication, but also fathers' communication, and Whitaker et al. (1999) used these instruments to measure the influences of parent-child communication about sex in content and processes with risky sexual behavior in sexually active youth. Dilorio et al. (1999) established the interview schedule, including 14 sex-related topics to ask mothers and adolescents, aged 13 to 15 years, whether they had discussed each topic together. The tool was created based on existing literature and focus group discussions. Kapungu et al. (2010) used the instrument, established by Dilorio et al. (1999) with mothers and adolescents to examine gender differences in the content of adolescents' communication about sexual issues, but included 17 topics. It was appropriate for the researchers to apply the tool because both studies focused on African American groups. The findings could help expand existing knowledge about the content of African-American families' communication about fathers. However, the researchers did not clarify how to improve the tool. Quantitative instruments measured the frequency, comfort, content, process, and timing of parent-child communication about sex using primarily self-report measures. Therefore, it appears that researchers have developed measures of parent-child communication about sex in a variety of ways. In the simplest form, researchers looked at the frequency of communication. Furthermore, numerous studies have considered multiple perspectives within the same topics and have focused on broad communication issues. Interestingly, some researchers have attempted to move away from self-report methods and use more innovative methodologies such as video-recorded conversations (Lefkowitz et al., 2000), however these also have disadvantages if the conversations take place in a laboratory environment..