Elementary Teachers Attitudes and Stages of Concern About an Agricultural Literacy Curriculum

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Elementary Teachers Attitudes and Stages of
Concern About an Agricultural Literacy Curriculum

• Kimberly A. Bellah, Tarleton State University
• and
• James E. Dyer, University of Florida

2
Introduction

• First-year teacher concerns
• Moir Model (Joerger, 2002)

• No Child Left Behind (Educational Research
  Service, 2001)
• Standardized exams
• Teachers serve as curriculum gatekeepers!
• What to teach?
• How to teach!

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Contextual Learning

• engages students and fosters interest to promote
  further education
• (Dailey, Conroy, Shelley-Tolbert, 2001, p. 18)

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A Case for Agricultural Literacy

• National Research Council (1988)
• Student education in and about agriculture at all
  levels

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A Case for Agricultural Literacy

• Hillison (1998) Peterson (1999)
• Need for partnerships with elementary teacher
  preparation programs for comprehensive
  agricultural literacy effort

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Concerns-Based Adoption Model
(Hall Hord, 2001)
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Stages of Concern

• Awareness
• Informational
• Personal
• Management
• Consequence
• Collaboration
• Refocusing

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Purpose
To explore the experiences of elementary teachers
in their adoption or rejection of the California
Curriculum Guidelines for Agricultural Literacy
Awareness (Bitto, Casey, Casey, 2006).
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Objectives

• 1) Describe the demographic and psychographic
  characteristics of the target population
• 2) Describe elementary teachers attitudes and
  perceptions of agriculture as a context for
  teaching elementary students.
• 3) Describe elementary teachers current Stages
  of Concern with respect to implementing an
  agricultural literacy curriculum.

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Methods Procedures

• Target population
• elementary teachers enrolled in a five-week
  preservice course designed to integrate
  agriculture into elementary curriculum (N48)
• Accessible population (n42)
• Mailed researcher-designed questionnaire
• 85.7 response rate (Lindner, Murphy, Briers,
  2001)
• Purposive sample (n10) selected for follow-up
  (Stages of Concern) with the agricultural
  literacy curriculum (CCGALA).

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Instrumentation

• Researcher-designed attitudinal questionnaire
• Attitude toward agriculture (a.87)
• Attitude toward agriculture as a context for
  teaching elementary students (a.70)
• Stages of Concern Questionnaire (Hall Hord,
  2001)
• Theoretical test/re-test .65-.86
• Internal consistency (a.64-.83)

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Objective 1 Demographics of target population
and purposive sample
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(No Transcript)
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Objective 2 Elementary teachers attitudes and
perceptions of agriculture as a context for
teaching elementary students.

• Distribution of participant attitudes toward
  agriculture
• µ23.92 (SD2.53)

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Objective 2 Elementary teachers attitudes and
perceptions of agriculture as a context for
teaching elementary students.

• Distribution of participant attitudes toward
  agriculture as a context for teaching elementary
  students
• µ82.67 (SD7.89)

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Objective 3 Describe elementary teachers
current Stages of Concern with respect to
implementing an agricultural literacy curriculum
CCGALA Users
The greater the score in a Stage of Concern, the
more intense the concerns are at that stage (Hall
George, 1998a)
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Objective 3 Describe elementary teachers
current Stages of Concern with respect to
implementing an agricultural literacy curriculum
CCGALA Non-users
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Conclusions and Recommendations

• Generally favorable attitudes and perceptions of
  agriculture and its use as a context for teaching
  elementary students
• Disparity between attitude and implementation

• Probe qualitatively into the differences between
  intentions and actions

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Hypothesized Development of Stages of Concern
(Hall Hord, 1987)
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Conclusions and Recommendations (continued)
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Conclusions and Recommendations (continued)
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Conclusions and Recommendations (continued)

• Non-user Stages of Concern paralleled previous
  studies
• Awareness Informational highest relative
  intensity

• User Stages of Concern reveal potential hybrid
• Informational Personal highest relative
  intensity
• Lowest opposite of hypothesized profile

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Conclusions and Recommendations (continued)

• Longitudinal studies to track changes in
  teachers Stages of Concern
• Quantitative analyses seeking significant
  differences between participants based on time
  lapsed from exposure to first potential
  implementation

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Final Recommendation

• Concerns-Based Adoption Model use in agricultural
  education profession
• Investigate teachers concerns from the onset,
  then structure professional development and
  delivery accordingly

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Thank you

• Questions?