HEALTH CARE EDUCATORS’ KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDES REGARDING SEXUALITY IN THE AGED

Health care providers’ knowledge of and attitudes toward sexuality in older adults may have an impact on the overall quality of care they provide to older clients. One place to begin improving the knowledge and attitudes of health care professionals may be health care educators. If educators have accurate knowledge and positive attitudes, they can help their students acquire accurate knowledge and develop positive attitudes. Forty‐two health care educators in a large community college completed a sexuality knowledge and attitude scale. The study attempted to determine the extent of the educators’ knowledge of sexuality in the aged, their attitudes toward it, the relationship between sexual knowledge and attitudes, and the relationship of knowledge and attitudes to certain personal / demographic variables and professional / experiential factors. The results indicated that the health care educators had limited knowledge regarding aged sexuality but held positive attitudes toward it. No significant relationship was found between knowledge and attitudes. Older health care educators and educators who had participated in continuing education related to sexuality possessed more knowledge about aged sexuality. Educators who rated themselves as more religious held more restrictive attitudes.     

Kindergarten Teachers' Use of Developmentally Appropriate Practices and Attitudes About Authority

This study examined the relationship between kindergarten teachers' use of developmentally appropriate practices and their attitudes toward authority in the classroom. The study found an overall low use of developmentally appropriate practices. Instead, the classrooms exhibited academically oriented, skill-centered programs. However, kindergarten teachers who rated themselves higher in authority sharing as opposed to authority controlling were more likely to use developmentally appropriate teaching strategies as delineated by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Aspects of the teachers' professional experience and education had little relationship to their attitudes about authority in the classroom. The positive relationship between an authority-sharing attitude and developmentally appropriate practices suggests that more importance be placed on developing teachers' and prospective teachers' attitudes about adult/child authority orientation than on simply prescribing overt teacher behavior.     

Kindergarten Teachers' Use of Developmentally Appropriate Practices and Attitudes About Authority

This study examined the relationship between kindergarten teachers' use of developmentally appropriate practices and their attitudes toward authority in the classroom. The study found an overall low use of developmentally appropriate practices. Instead, the classrooms exhibited academically oriented, skill-centered programs. However, kindergarten teachers who rated themselves higher in authority sharing as opposed to authority controlling were more likely to use developmentally appropriate teaching strategies as delineated by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Aspects of the teachers' professional experience and education had little relationship to their attitudes about authority in the classroom. The positive relationship between an authority-sharing attitude and developmentally appropriate practices suggests that more importance be placed on developing teachers' and prospective teachers' attitudes about adult/child authority orientation than on simply prescribing overt teacher behavior.     

Pre-service teachers’ and teacher-educators’ experiences and attitudes toward using social networking sites for collaborative learning

Extensive use of social networking sites by students and teachers makes educators and researchers to think whether they can be incorporated in instructional process to facilitate students’ learning. This survey-based study records and examines Pakistani pre-service teachers’ and teacher-educators’ current uses of Facebook, and their attitudes toward using Facebook for collaborative learning, and to see if there is a significant relationship between participants’ intensity of Facebook use and their attitude toward instructional use of Facebook. Results of the study indicated that pre-service teachers’ and teacher-educators’ motives for their current Facebook use are mainly limited for social purposes. Pre-service teachers’ use of Facebook is more intensified than the use of Facebook by teacher-educators. Further, pre-service teachers showed more positive attitudes toward using Facebook for collaborative learning than the attitudes of their faculty. Findings also indicated a positive relationship between participants’ Facebook intensity and their attitudes toward its use for collaborative learning.     

Knowledge and Attitudes Towards Biotechnology of Elementary Education Preservice Teachers: The first Spanish experience

Due to the important impact that biotechnology has on current Western societies, well-informed critical citizens are needed. People prepared to make conscious decisions about aspects of biotechnology that relate to their own lives. Teachers play a central role in all education systems. Thus, the biotechnological literacy of preservice teachers is an important consideration as they will become an influential collective as future teachers of the next generation of children. The attitudes toward science (and biotechnology) that teachers have affect their behavior and influence the way they implement their daily practice of science teaching in school. This study analyzes the attitudes and knowledge of Spanish preservice teachers toward biotechnology. We designed a new survey instrument that was completed by 407 university students who were taking official degree programs in preschool and primary education. Our results point out that although they are aware of biotechnology applications, topics concerning the structure of DNA, management of genetic information inside the cell, genetically modified organism technology and the use of microorganisms as biotechnological tools were not correctly answered. According to our attitude analysis, Spanish preservice teachers could be defined as opponents of genetically modified product acquisition, supporters of biotechnology for medical purposes and highly interested in increasing their knowledge about biotechnology and other scientific advances. Our results show a positive correlation between better knowledge and more positive attitudes toward biotechnology. A Spanish preservice teacher with positive attitudes toward biotechnology tends to be a student with a strong biology background who scored good marks in our knowledge test.     

Relationship between nonwestern teacher attitudes toward pupils and their authoritarianism

This study investigated the relationship of authoritarianism and teachers' attitude toward their pupils of graduate students in the Middle East. It was found that those individuals scoring high on authoritarianism had less positive attitudes toward pupils. Further, Moslems were more authoritarian and had less positive attitudes toward pupils than Christians. The sex of the respondent was not related to his or her attitude.     

A STUDY OF THE ATTITUDES OF FEMALE ADULTS TOWARD COMPUTERS

This study investigated the attitudes of female adult subjects toward computers. The population consisted of 63 subjects, most of whom were enrolled in allied health curricula. The instrument used was the Computer Attitude Scale. It was found that computer anxiety existed only to a moderate degree. Subjects who had taken a computer literacy course expressed on some items, a more positive attitude toward microcomputers. No evidence was found of a significant relationship between age and their attitude toward computers.     

The development of student teachers’ research knowledge,beliefs and attitude

This study reports on the development of second-year student teachers’ knowledge of research, and the changes in their beliefs and attitude regarding research during an introductory course at an institute for primary teacher education. Questionnaires and concept maps were administered before and after the course. The results showed that student teachers’ knowledge about research grew during the introductory course and that their positive beliefs about research became more positive, while their negative beliefs about research decreased. A positive change was found concerning the attractiveness of research to student teachers. Furthermore, student teachers’ self-efficacy regarding research appeared related to their beliefs and attitude: the more the student teachers were convinced of their abilities to conduct and use the results of research after the course, the more positive their beliefs and their attitude regarding research were. This study provides guidelines for institutes for teacher education on integrating research activities into their curricula, so that their student teachers develop research knowledge and positive beliefs and attitudes towards research.     

Risky Business: South African youths and HIV/AIDS prevention

Behavior change is the only available means of curtailing new HIV infections in South Africa. This study investigated the relationship between sexual risk taking and attitudes to AIDS precautions. The participants were about 25% white, about 30% colored/mixed blood and 45% black in their second year in polytechnics (413 females and 402 males). Participants responded to the 40-item HIV-related knowledge, attitudes and behaviors. Data indicated that young women showed more positive attitudes to AIDS precautions than young men (reflecting in part the stereotypic negative attitudes of young men toward condoms). In general, most males and females were found to have less knowledge about HIV transmission and less favorable attitudes toward safe sex behavior than their counterparts in the west. Also young men with more partners expressed more fatalistic attitudes toward AIDS. The possibility that a finergrained multivariate analysis of attitudes to AIDS and safe-sex behaviour is something that needs to be taken seriously in future research, however.     

UNESCO'S Environmental Education Program

Abstract

A visitor education strategy was developed, implemented, and tested for its effectiveness in raising levels of knowledge and attitudes toward state nature preserve management. Visitor sociodemographic and site-specific data were also collected and analyzed. A stratified random sample of visitors to four Ohio state nature preserves was taken, and visitor sociodemographic, site-specific, knowledge and attitude data were obtained by a 35-item questionnaire. Results from 1,141 completed questionnaires showed preserve visitors to be mostly male, age 20–39, with incomes ranging from $10,000 to $30,000, and with few of them holding memberships in either community or conservation groups. Most visited state nature preserves frequently, were very satisfied with their most recent preserve visits, and came to the preserves with either family or friends, for solitude and to see sights. A pretest of knowledge of and attitudes toward selected nature preserve management concepts showed that visitors poorly comprehended the concepts and held negative or neutral attitudes toward them. A visitor education program was developed utilizing interpretive strategies as methods of transmitting information about the preserve management concepts. Posttest scores showed gains both in levels of knowledge and attitudes. The largest gains were found where brochures and personal services were employed as interpretive strategies. Correlational analyses showed a statistically significant relationship between visitors' knowledge of preserve management and their attitudes toward it. Analyses also showed no relationship between sociodemographic variables and knowledge of or attitudes toward preserve management concepts.     

Is There a Double Standard of Aging?: Older Men and Women and Ageism

This study was designed to determine current young adults' attitudes toward older adults and to explore, more specifically, whether they hold different attitudes towards older men and women. An additional objective was to examine the association between knowledge of aging processes and attitudes towards older adults. A total of 405 (210 males, 195 females) undergraduate students at a small Midwestern university were assessed on their attitudes toward an older male and an older female and on their knowledge of aging. Data analyses revealed that the participants showed more positive, rather than negative, attitudes towards older adults, and they rated older women significantly more positively than older men. No relationship was found between knowledge of aging processes and attitudes toward aging. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Attitudes toward Older Workers among Undergraduates: Does Status Make a Difference?

Most research on attitudes toward older adults does not address subgroups of older adults. This study evaluated whether attitudes among undergraduates towards older professionals were more positive than those toward older adults in general. A 2 × 2 factorial design with the covariate of knowledge of aging was used with measures from two attitude scales. Independent variables were the priming target of older adults in general or older professionals and the order of administration of the two attitude scales with a sample of 107 undergraduates. The covariate was significant for three of the four dependent measures. The scale specifically developed for attitudes toward older workers showed a significant difference between the priming instruction groups, with more positive attitudes toward older professionals. Significant interactions in the same direction were noted for two of the other scales: Avoidance and Discrimination. The results suggest that professional status does provide one case in which negative attitudes among undergraduates toward older workers and adults in general may not hold.     

CONTACT QUALITY AND ATTITUDES TOWARD THE ELDERLY

The contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954) states that cooperative contact with individual members of an out-group can lead to a general more positive attitude toward the out-group as a whole. The research reported in this article investigated the validity of the contact hypothesis within the context of interage interactions. Specifically, the study examined the relationship between young adults' contact with older adults and their attitudes toward the elderly in general. Previous research has emphasized that various factors related to contact quality strongly influence the formation of positive attitudes. In accordance with this assertion, we hypothesized that a single factor, participants' self-reported quality of contact with older individuals, would be related to their attitudes toward the elderly as measured by an implicit attitude scale. Participants' self-reported frequency of contact with older adults was expected to have no effect on their attitudes. College-aged participants were given a single questionnaire that assessed (a) the frequency and quality of their contact with elderly men and women and (b) their implicit attitudes toward the elderly. The results confirmed that self-reported favorable quality, but not frequency, of contact was significantly related to more positive attitudes toward the elderly.     

The Value of Amount of Tardiness and Absence for Direct and Differential Prediction of Academic Success

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among nine measures of attitude toward quantitative concepts and verbal and quantitative aptitude. Subjects were 353 graduate students enrolled in educational research courses. The attitude measures consisted of nine factor scores drawn from a seman tic differential instrument; the aptitude measures were the Graduate Record Examination Verbal and Quantitative scores. Canonical correlation was used to relate the attitude to the aptitude measures. Two significant canonical variates were obtained. The first showed a moderate relationship between positive attitudes toward quantitative concepts and high quantitative aptitude. The second indicated a slight relationship between negative attitudes toward quantitative concepts and high verbal aptitude.     

School partnerships as the base for theory as well as practice

A questionnaire assessing attitudes toward small‐group teaching (SGT) was administered to 442 elementary and secondary school teachers from 26 randomly selected schools in Israel. Data was collected on teachers’ prior experience with SGT, their knowledge of the basic characteristics of this approach and their perception of colleagues’ support for the use of innovative teaching techniques. Teachers expressed somewhat negative attitudes toward SGT on a scale dealing with teacher control of the class, but they were distinctly positive on a scale about the efficiency of SGT for presenting subject matter, and most positive regarding the effect of SGT on pupil development. Teachers experienced with SGT were more positive on 2 out of 3 attitude scales than were those with no experience. Data from measures of teachers’ understanding of SGT characteristics, their perception of colleagual support for innovative teaching and prior experience with SGT accounted for 30 per cent of the variance (canonical R = 0.55) in their responses to the three attitude scales. Findings were discussed in terms of their implications for a model of instructional innovation.     

The Politics of Environmental Quality

Abstract

The objective of this study was to establish whether students in a variety of educational establishments differed in their attitudes toward nature and the environment and to discover more about their nature- and environment-related activities and knowledge. Major variations among students were found according to their gender and educational backgrounds. Female students tended to show more responsibility toward the environment than male students. Of the different educational groups studied, students of biology exhibited the most positive attitudes and the greatest levels of knowledge; they also participated in many nature-related activities. In contrast, there was some evidence that students of subjects related to technology and economics adopted a more negative attitude toward the environment and, on average, had fewer nature-related hobbies than students in general. Attitudes, the quantity of nature-related activities, and knowledge about environmentor nature-related issues correlated with one another. Although educational background seemed to affect attitudes, activity levels, and knowledge, there are without a doubt a number of other underlying factors.     

Development and Initial Psychometric Assessment of the Plant Attitude Questionnaire

Plants are integral parts of ecosystems which determine life on Earth. People’s attitudes toward them are however, largely overlooked. Here we present initial psychometric assessment of self-constructed Plant Attitude Scale (PAS) that was administered to a sample of 310 Slovakian students living in rural areas aged 10–15 years. The final version of PAS consists from 29 Likert-scale items that were loaded to four distinct dimensions (Interest, Importance, Urban trees and Utilization). Mean scores revealed that Slovakian students lack positive attitudes toward plants and that gender had no effect on their mean attitude scores. Living in a family with a garden was associated with a more positive attitude toward plants. Further correlative research on diverse samples containing urban children and experimental research examining the impact of gardening in schools on student attitudes toward plants is required.     

Chinese Students’ Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help

In this study 1,453 Chinese high school and college students’ attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help and factors contributing to attitude differences were examined. Results revealed that Chinese students possessed generally positive attitudes and their attitudes were significantly associated with gender, prior counseling contact and prior knowledge about counseling and psychology. Previous help-seeking behavior for a major problem was predictive of respondent attitudes. Students with a broad range of help-seeking preferences had more positive attitudes than students with a narrower range. Students who sought help from parents or teachers perceived counseling more positively than students not seeking such help; this result was more significant for high school students. College students’ attitudes differed more in the area of whether or not to seek help. In addition, family structure was related to two dimensions of attitudes toward help seeking—interpersonal openness and stigma tolerance, but not to attitudes toward seeking psychological help.     

Cognitive Style,Gender, Attitude toward Computer‐assisted Learning and Academic Achievement

This paper reports an investigation of cognitive style, gender, attitude toward using computer‐assisted learning (CAL) and academic achievement among university students. A Group Embedded Figures Test was used to assess students’ cognitive style and a questionnaire was used for the evaluation of students’ attitude toward CAL. The results revealed that students have positive attitudes toward CAL but they were not prepared to rely entirely on CAL. A 2 x 2 ANOVA was used to investigate the effect of cognitive style and gender on the attitude toward CAL. The results revealed that male students preferred using CAL significantly more than females and field dependent students were more prepared to rely entirely on CAL than field independent students. On the other hand, there was a significant difference between males and females in their achievement scores in favour of the male group. But there was no difference between field dependence and field independence groups in their achievement. The results also revealed no significant relationship between students’ attitudes toward CAL and their achievement in these courses.     

PREDICTORS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS’ KNOWLEDGE OF AND ATTITUDES TOWARD ELDERLY SEXUALITY: THE RELEVANCE OF GRANDPARENTAL CONTACT

In this study, 241 young and middle‐aged adult college students completed the Aging Sexuality Knowledge and Attitude Scale, and provided information about their demographic and grandparental relationship qualities. Findings showed that greater age was associated with increased knowledge of elderly sexuality. Both the presence of contact and greater than average perceptions of closeness with at least one grandparent were predictive of more permissive attitudes toward elderly sexuality. Among the total sample, greater knowledge was related to more permissive attitudes toward elderly sexuality. However, the presence of contact with at least one grandparent moderated this relationship; young adults without grandparental contact presented a nonsignificant knowledge /attitude relationship. These findings suggest that future studies of younger age cohorts’ attitudes toward elderly sexuality should assess grandparental contact and relationship characteristics, as well as general demographic information such as chronological age. Health‐care educators also may need to reconsider the commonly held assumption that greater knowledge of elderly sexuality is associated exclusively with more permissive attitudes.