An Educational Needs Assessment of Pennsylvania Workforce: Opportunities to Redefine Secondary Career and Technical Education to Meet Food Industry Needs

ABSTRACT: This article describes the outcomes of a needs assessment concerning current training needs and performance targets for non-degreed employees in the food industry. Focus groups were used to gather data from 5 food-processing companies: a fresh vegetable company, a canned vegetable company, 2 snack food companies, and a meat company. Focus group participants consisted of 1 senior-level manager each from human resource, production, quality assurance, purchasing, and product development departments within each company. The needs assessment identified 4 major themes that employers indicated as beneficial knowledge and skills for employees to possess: safety training, knowledge of food and production systems, learning and applying mathematical skills, and professional conduct. The authors anticipate that the knowledge of industry needs, with respect to the desired incoming workforce competencies and knowledge, will facilitate the development of integrated curriculum modules for secondary career and technical education programs (high school grades). These integrated curriculum modules will address the growing needs of the food industry and facilitate the development of employment skills required to function and prosper in the new global economy.     

DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A TAIWANESE COMMUNICATION PROGRESSION IN SCIENCE EDUCATION

Today, early science education is a well-accepted view. Enhancing children’s curiosity about the natural world and fostering positive attitudes toward science are primary goals of science education. However, questions remain regarding the appropriate ways to identify, nurture, and study these emotional states in pre-schoolers. This study examines the potential of using pre-schooler’s verbal (e.g. self-generated figurative expressions) and behavioral (sensorimotor interactions) responses while participating in a scientific activity, as indicators of curiosity and attitudes toward science. The responses of 41 pre-schoolers were documented via a response questionnaire developed for this study. An integrated quantitative–qualitative approach was utilized for data analyses. Results show that pre-schoolers utilize figurative expressions to express various emotional valences. Generation of verbal expressions that entail positive emotional valences and the desire to engage in sensorimotor interactions during a scientific activity were identified as positively correlated. Additionally, girls were more likely to express curiosity and positive attitudes toward science than boys in the context of this study. The findings suggest that these verbal and behavioral measures may serve as indicators of attitudes and curiosity toward science among pre-school children.     

A potential shock-reducing contingency in the backshock technique: Implications for learned helplessness

Electric shocks were delivered to rats through a subcutaneously implanted back electrode. Experiment 1 evaluated the relationship between number of paws grounded and total power dissipated in the rat. In Experiment 2, the threshold of shock-induced vocalization, a putative index of aversiveness, was found to be positively correlated with the number of paws grounded. These findings suggest that when the backshock technique is used, the aversiveness of shock potentially can be modified by the posture adopted by the experimental animal. Caution should be exercised, therefore, in attributing deficits in escape behavior following inescapable shock administered with back electrodes to learned helplessness.     

Social Interactions in the Home and the Development of Young Children's Conceptions of the Personal

Observations and interviews of 20 middle-class 3- and 4-year-olds and their mothers were conducted to examine the emergence of the personal domain. Interviews with children showed that 3- and 4-year-olds make a conceptual distinction between personal, and moral or conventional issues. Interviews with mothers indicated that they viewed it as important for young children to have freedom of choice over personal issues to develop a sense of autonomy and individuality. Observations in the home revealed that mothers tended to give direct social messages to children about moral, conventional, and prudential events, and were more likely to give indirect social messages in the form of offered choices to children in response to personal issues. Mothers were more likely to negotiate with children over personal than other social events. These data revealed a pattern of social interactions concordant with event domain, which included a reciprocal system along the border between the personal and the conventional.     

Student achievement and attitude in a satellite‐delivered high school science course

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of satellite‐delivered instruction on student achievement and attitude in a high school anatomy and physiology course. The experimental group included students from seven high schools enrolled in the satellite‐delivered course. The control group consisted of students from seven high schools in which classroom teachers provided instruction. An experimental versus control matched‐pair design was used in the study. Two hypotheses were tested using the t test for dependent samples. The findings show that there was no significant difference between the experimental group and control group in attitude toward anatomy and physiology. However, on the achievement test, the mean post‐test score of the experimental group was significantly higher than that of the control group.     

Recent research

Specialized programs designed to meet the unique needs of young gifted children are increasing in number. Parents of this population are becoming involved in the development of these programs. This study examined expectancies, concerns and current issues as perceived by parents of children identified as gifted at an early age. Additionally, parents expressed roles in which they would be willing to serve in the planning and delivery of services for their children. Curriculum preferences, availability and lack of services available or desired, support of full or half‐day programs, and specific information areas requested by the parents are presented.     

Film Production

MASTERS OF LIGHT: CONVERSATIONS WITH CONTEMPORARY CINEMATOGRAPHERS edited by Dennis Schaefer and Larry Salvato (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984---$27.50 hardcover)