Using the theory of planned behaviour framework to understand Tasmanian dairy farmer engagement with extension activities to inform future delivery

Purpose: To identify and understand factors influencing farmers’ decisions to engage with extension activities. To understand farmer segments and how these factors vary in order to develop recommendations for future extension delivery.

Methodology: Qualitative data was obtained through semi-structured interviews with 30 Tasmanian dairy farmers. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) framework was used to identify and explore factors influencing farmer engagement intentions and behaviour.

Findings: There was a negative effect of social influence on experienced farmers’ intention to re-engage with extension, due to the belief extension activities were targeted to less experienced, younger farmers. Perceived control factors limiting engagement included lack of confidence about existing knowledge, resulting in farmers perceiving extension activities as confronting.

Practical implications: Key factors influencing intention to engage and continued engagement with extension were identified. These findings will inform future design and targeting of extension activities to improve initial and continued engagement. Subsequent recommendations are presented.

Theoretical implications: Previous TPB studies on adoption as an outcome of extension have typically focused on quantifying adoption predictions, rather than exploring how social factors interact and influence intentions and behaviours. This paper demonstrates how the TPB can be qualitatively applied to better understand farmer decision making, in this instance with respect to their initial and continued engagement with extension.

Originality/value: This paper demonstrates how the TPB can provide an evidence-based framework to qualitatively explore farmer intentions and behaviour. This approach has led to new insights into farmer decision making that will inform improvements in future extension development.     

Measuring poly-victimization using the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire

OBJECTIVE: Children who experience multiple victimizations (referred to in this paper as poly-victims) need to be identified because they are at particularly high risk of additional victimization and traumatic psychological effects. This paper compares alternative ways of identifying such children using questions from the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire (JVQ). METHODS: The JVQ was administered in a national random digit dial telephone survey about the experiences of 2,030 children. The victimizations of children 10-17 years old were assessed through youth self-report on the JVQ and the victimizations of children 2-9 assessed through JVQ caregiver proxy report. RESULTS: Twenty-two percent of the children in this sample had experienced four or more different kinds of victimizations in separate incidents (what we term poly-victimization) within the previous year. Such poly-victimization was highly associated with traumatic symptomatology. Several ways of identifying poly-victims with the JVQ produced roughly equivalent results: a simple count using the 34 victimizations screeners, a count using a reduced set of only 12 screeners, and the original poly-victimization measure using follow-up questions to identify victimizations occurring during different episodes. CONCLUSION: Researchers and clinicians should be taking steps to identify poly-victims within the populations with which they work and have several alternative ways of doing so.     

‘Left with a title but nothing else’: the challenges of embedding professional recognition schemes for teachers within higher education institutions

ABSTRACT

With increasing moves globally towards the professionalisation of teaching in Higher Education, there is growing interest in the role of accredited professional recognition schemes that provide professional development for established university teaching staff. In the UK, There are now over 120 professional recognition schemes, resulting in institutionally focused evaluation studies examining their impact. This article contributes to this emerging body of work; it draws on cross-institutional data and Foucauldian theorising to address two important questions. In what ways does engagement with an institutional professional recognition scheme impact on participants’ teaching development, and how does institutional culture influence that engagement? The data illustrate that whilst institutional culture drives engagement, it did little to promote teaching development. Across the case-study institutions, neo-liberalism agendas were apparent. Some staff felt pushed to achieve professional recognition in response to the increasing use of metrics to measure the student experience and to inform institutional standing in league tables. Whilst evidence shows the process of seeking accreditation can lead to an enhancement in teaching practices, caution must be taken to ensure that the professional development opportunities offered by accreditation schemes are fully realised.     

Teachers’ Integration of Scientific and Engineering Practices in Primary Classrooms

The Next-Generation Science Standards (NGSS) challenge primary teachers and students to work and think like scientists and engineers as they strive to understand complex concepts. Teachers and teacher educators can leverage what is already known about inquiry teaching as they plan instruction to help students meet the new standards. This cross-case analysis of a multiple case study examined teacher practices in the context of a semester-long professional development course for elementary teachers. We reviewed lessons and teacher reflections, examining how kindergarten and first grade teachers incorporated NGSS scientific and engineering practices during inquiry-based instruction. We found that most of the teachers worked with their students on asking questions; planning and carrying out investigations; analyzing and interpreting data, using mathematics and computational thinking; and obtaining, evaluating and communicating information. Teachers faced challenges in supporting students in developing their own questions that could be investigated and using data collection strategies that aligned with students’ development of number sense concepts. Also, some teachers overemphasized the scientific method and lacked clarity in how they elicited and responded to student predictions. Discussion focuses on teacher supports that will be needed as states transition to NGSS.     

The Strong African American Families Program: translating research into prevention programming

A randomized prevention trial contrasted families who took part in the Strong African American Families Program (SAAF), a preventive intervention for rural African American mothers and their 11-year-olds, with control families. SAAF is based on a contextual model positing that regulated, communicative parenting causes changes in factors protecting youths from early alcohol use and sexual activity. Parenting variables included involvement-vigilance, racial socialization, communication about sex, and clear expectations for alcohol use. Youth protective factors included negative attitudes about early alcohol use and sexual activity, negative images of drinking youths, resistance efficacy, a goal-directed future orientation, and acceptance of parental influence. Intervention-induced changes in parenting mediated the effect of intervention group influences on changes in protective factors over a 7-month period.     

Native American Adolescent Career Development

Within the framework of Social Cognitive Career (SCCT; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994, 2000), this study examined the associations among career interests, career efficacy expectations, gender, and perceived parent support among Native American and Caucasian middle school adolescents. Consistent with previous research, results indicated that Native American young people had greater interests in Realistic and Conventional occupations, and in occupations that typically require a high-school diploma, a trade school certificate, or 2 years of post high-school education. However, contrary to previous findings, they had as great a range of interests in and self-efficacy expectations for Investigative, Artistic, Social, and Enterprising occupations as Caucasian adolescents, and similarly high levels of interests, efficacy, and perceived parent support for careers typically requiring 4 or more years of post-high school education.     

Fractions as the Coordination of Multiplicatively Related Quantities: A Cross-Sectional Study of Children's Thinking

Although equal sharing problems appear to support the development of fractions as multiplicative structures, very little work has examined how children's informal solutions reflect this possibility. The primary goal of this study was to analyze children's coordination of two quantities (number of people sharing and number of things being shared) in their solutions to equal sharing problems and to see to what extent this coordination was multiplicative. A secondary goal was to document children's solutions for equal sharing problems in which the quantities had a common factor (other than 1). Data consisted of problem-solving interviews with students in 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades (n=112). We found two major categories of strategies: (a) Parts Quantities strategies and (b) Ratio Quantities strategies. Parts quantities involved children's partitions of continuous units expressed in terms of the number of pieces that would be created. Ratio quantities involved children's creation of associated sets of discrete quantities. Within these strategies, children drew upon a range of relationships among fractions, ratio, multiplication, and division to mentally or physically manipulate quantities of sharers and things to produce exhaustive and equal partitions of the items. Additionally, we observed that problems that included number combinations with common factors elicited a wider range of whole-number knowledge and operations in children's strategies and therefore appeared to support richer interconnections than problems with relatively prime or more basic number combinations.     

An investigation into teaching games for understanding: effects on skill, knowledge, and game play.

The purpose of this study was to test the validity of the games for understanding model by comparing it to a technique approach to instruction and a control group. The technique method focused primarily on skill instruction where the skill taught initially was incorporated into a game at the end of each lesson. The games for understanding approach emphasized developing tactical awareness and decision making in small game situations. Two physical education specialists taught field hockey using these approaches for 15 lessons (45 min each). The control group did not receive any field hockey instruction. Data were collected from 71 middle school children. Pretests and posttests were administered for hockey knowledge, skill, and game performance. Separate analyses of variance or analyses of covariance were conducted to examine group differences for cognitive and skill outcomes. The games for understanding group scored significantly higher on passing decision making than the technique and control groups during posttest game play and significantly higher than the control group for declarative and procedural knowledge. The games for understanding group scored significantly higher on control and passing execution than the other groups during posttest game play. For hockey skill, there were no significant differences among the treatment groups for accuracy, but the technique group recorded faster times than the control group on the posttest.     

Perceived workplace conditions and first-year teachers’ morale, career choice commitment, and planned retention: a secondary analysis

The relationships between perceived workplace conditions and morale, career choice commitment, and planned retention were examined for first-year teachers in the United States. A nationally representative sample of first-year teachers (K-12) was extracted from the United States Department of Education's Schools and Staffing Surveys database for 1987–88 and 1993–94. A school culture that supports collaboration and teacher participation in decision-making was most strongly related to higher morale, stronger commitment to teaching, and intentions to remain in the profession. The discussion highlights the importance of providing supportive workplace conditions during a formalized induction year that socialize new teachers into a collaborative and participatory work-ethic that sustains commitment.