Teacher Beliefs About Sustainable Agriculture: A Self-made Measurement Scale

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2020-10-31
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Muma, Mathew
Martin, Robert
Shelley, Mack
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Shelley, Mack
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Agricultural Education and Studies

The Department of Agricultural Education and Studies was formed in 1989 as a result of the merger of the Department of Agricultural Education with the Department of Agricultural Studies. Its focus includes two these fields: agricultural education leading to teacher-certification or outreach communication; and agricultural studies leading to production agriculture or other agricultural industries.

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The Department of Agricultural Education and Studies was formed in 1989 from the merger of the Department of Agricultural Education and the Department of Agricultural Studies.

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1989–present

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Political Science
The Department of Political Science has been a separate department in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (formerly the College of Sciences and Humanities) since 1969 and offers an undergraduate degree (B.A.) in political science, a graduate degree (M.A.) in political science, a joint J.D./M.A. degree with Drake University, an interdisciplinary degree in cyber security, and a graduate Certificate of Public Management (CPM). In addition, it provides an array of service courses for students in other majors and other colleges to satisfy general education requirements in the area of the social sciences.
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Abstract

The study’s purpose was to analyze the validity of the construct of a self-made Alternative-Conventional Agricultural Paradigm scale using the teacher population teaching high school agriculture in the North Central Region of the USA. A random sample of 844 teachers was drawn. Teachers were self-administered questionnaires with 5-point Likert-type scales. Instrument inter-item consistency and item coherence were determined. The relatively high coefficient alpha (.82), mean item total correlation (.40), and unrotated first factors with modest number of items loading on the factor means that the scale has mainly one underlying construct. The teacher population holds consistent views and attitudes about SA constituting an agricultural paradigm. The instrument items are coherent as components of a whole and are related. However, the teacher population did not hold stronger paradigmatic views on the scale as can be expected because of their relatively low mean score item-total correlation and coefficient alpha for the instrument compared to what was found for the scale in the Beus and Dunlap (1991) study. This should be expected because agriculture teachers are not strong adherents of the two agricultural paradigms who can be expected to make extreme and polar scores on the scale. The instrument can therefore be used to preliminarily gauge the paradigmatic orientation of agriculture teachers in the region. Further research with the instrument with known groups supporting the two paradigms is necessary to establish its validity.

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This article is published as Muma, Mathew, Robert Martin, and Mack Shelley. "Teacher Beliefs About Sustainable Agriculture: A Self-made Measurement Scale." Asian Social Science 16, no. 11 (2020): 115-122. DOI: 10.5539/ass.v16n11p115. Posted with permission.

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Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 UTC 2020
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