Innocents Abroad: Attitude Change toward Hosts

CHAPTER 8 - Summary of Attitude and Source Change Theories

This study examined changes in students' attitudes, motivation and French achievement during a five‐week, residential, summer program. Sixty‐two students were administered a battery of attitude and motivation tests as well as a test of oral French proficiency prior to, and upon completion of the course. In addition, both teacher‐ratings and self‐ratings of French language skills were collected at several time periods during the course. Data were analysed across the various testings for three groupings of students (i.e., beginning, intermediate, or advanced). Changes in attitudes, motivation and French proficiency were observed and the course was particularly effective in increasing student motivation to learn French and in promoting a rather rapid improve‐ ment in oral/aural skills. The pattern of attitude changes was more complex as both positive and negative shifts were observed. Possible implications of these findings for similar programs are discussed.

One of the factors causing high rates of workplace accidents is the human factor, i.e., the view that the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) will cause the work discomfort and reduce the work speed so it will reduce the productivity. This attitude discourages employees to use PPE set by the company. This study was aimed to determine the effect of the provision of information and structured discussion on changes in employee attitudes towards the use of PPE. The design of experiment used in this research was multiple treatments and control with pretest, which involved two experimental groups and one control group. The first experimental group (EG1) was treated with the provision of information (academic detailing) and structured discussion. The second experimental group (EG2) received structured discussion without any provision of information. The control group (CG) was not given any treatment. The study involved 48 subjects, i.e. 16 people on EG1, 17 people on EG2, and 15 people in the CG. Statistical analysis using mixed ANOVA showed that there was a significant change in attitude towards the use of PPE (F=12.670; p 0.05).

Background: Teachers in the field of psychiatry has the responsibility to impart changes in students' attitude towards important areas of the subject. Suicide is the psychiatric emergency that a primary care practitioner is most likely to encounter in day to day practice. In this cross-sectional study, we looked into the change in the attitude of an undergraduate student towards suicide with his/her training in psychiatry with the present undergraduate curriculum. Materials and Methods: We recruited undergraduate medical students doing their MBBS course from a medical college of South India. Their responses to Eskin's Attitudes towards Suicide Scale (E-ATSS) and Eskin's Social Reactions to Suicidal Persons Scale (E-SRSPS) were collected. The students were divided into groups of students completed undergraduate training in Psychiatry and those who are yet to get exposed to it. Responses in E-ATSS and E-SRSPS from both groups were compared. Results: The overall attitude of students towards suicide and suicidal person were favourable compared to many previous studies. There was a significant difference in the factor ' suicide as a sign of mental illness' when responses from both groups were compared. 2.72±1.11 in the exposed group compared to 3.16±1.11 of unexposed group. p-value<0.001). Also, there was a significant difference in responses to the disapproval of suicidal disclosure. 2.83±0.65 in the exposed group and 2.67±0.67 in the unexposed group. (p-value - 0.01). Conclusion: The current undergraduate medical curriculum by Medical Council of India is successful in bringing attitude change in some important domains of the subject of suicide. Domains remain under-covered by the curriculum should be looked into in the future curriculum revisions.

A study was developed to compare secondary high school students' knowledge and attitude changes toward environmental issues after the completion of an interdisciplinary instructional unit in environmental science. The population for the study was high school horticulture and environmental science students. The study consisted of four student groups, including two control groups and two experimental groups, one each from an environmental science class and a horticulture class. The control groups did not participate in the treatment, which consisted of an environmental mini-unit and plant propagation experiment that the experimental groups completed. Both student groups responded to a pre- and posttest questionnaire. There were no significant differences in overall attitude scores between treatment and control groups. Significant differences were noted in knowledge gains between the horticulture control group and treatment group, with students participating in the mini-unit scoring significantly higher in knowledge gain. There was also a positive correlation between attitude scores of students who had success with their propagation experiments. The results of this study indicate that it is important to test students' attitudes and knowledge when determining the effectiveness of new environmental curriculum. The high correlation between success in the propagation experiment included in the miniunit and attitude supports findings that an activity-based curriculum has the potential to raise the awareness of students on environmental issues.

This study examines the ability of the Theory of Planned Behavior to account for mothers' intentions to limit the frequency of their infants' sugar consumption. One group of mothers (experimental) was exposed to a dental health education program designed to promote this behavior, the other (control) group was not. Each group of mothers was interviewed twice; the intervention was delivered to mothers in the experimental group immediately after their first interview. The interviews incorporated measures of the key constructs in the Theory of Planned Behavior (attitudes to behavior, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intentions). Results indicated that the addition of perceived behavioral control resulted in small but significant increments in the amount of explained variance in intentions, thereby supporting the theory. Although the change in intentions to perform the advocated behavior was not significantly greater in the experimental group than in the control group, there was a significant change in attitudes to the behavior in the experimental group but no such change in the control group. Moreover, amount of change in behavioral intentions was significantly correlated with amount of change in attitudes, but not with amount of change in subjective norms or perceived behavioral control. Analysis of behavioral beliefs indicated that the attitude change reflected a change in a specific behavioral belief that was targeted in the intervention. Further analyses focused on the role played by direct experience of the behavior and show that such experience tended to enhance the role of perceived behavioral control in intention formation, apparently because mothers who have older children have discovered that they have relatively little control over frequency of child's sugar consumption. The implication of these results for the Theory of Planned Behavior are discussed.

PURPOSE: The study examined the efficacy of a team-centered prevention program targeting eating disorders by assessing knowledge and attitude changes in collegiate auxiliary members (color guard, dance team, majorettes). METHODS: Samples from two auxiliary units at two Division I institutions in the Southeastern United States compromised control (n=19) and experimental (n=21) groups. A pre-existing primary prevention program served as treatment. Intervention components were supplementation, psychological measures, sports nutrition, and exercise. Eight 45-minute classroom sessions were delivered across 4-weeks. The Eating Disorder Inventory-3 and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale assessed psychological traits and depression. Nutrition and disordered eating surveys assessed content knowledge. RESULTS: Experimental participants significantly improved nutrition knowledge (p≤0.01) and eating disorders (p=0.01) knowledge compared to the control group who demonstrated no significant difference. Compared to no significant changes for the control, the experimental groups had positive (beneficial) significant changes for: EDI-3 low selfesteem subscale (p=0.03), depressions levels (p≤0.01), drive for thinness (p=0.01), bulimia (p=0.02), body dissatisfaction (p=0.03), and maturity fears (p=0.02). CONCLUSIONS: This team approach prevention program effectively improved shortterm knowledge and eating disorder attitudes. While it is plausible behavioral changes would follow, future research should directly examine this possibility.

The attitude change caused by reading selections from children’s literature was determined by means of an attitude scale constructed for this purpose. In this study 437 fifth-grade children participated. Each of the eighteen classrooms was randomly designated a control group, a reading group or a reading plus discussion group so that there were two of each of the treatment groups in each of three racial-socio-economic areas. Attitude change between the pretest and posttest was the dependent variable.he attitude change of the reading group toward American Indians was significantly greater than that of the control group (p > .05), and reading plus discussion changed the attitude more than reading alone (p > .05). No significant relationship was found between IQ and attitude change nor between reading achievement and attitude change. The significant change took place mainly in racially integrated classrooms located in the middle socio-economic area. In these classrooms the favorable attitude change of the Negro subjects in the reading group was significantly greater than that of the Caucasians (p > .025).

Numerous empirical findings have shown biased judgments of (future) teachers depending on students’ ethnic and social background. Furthermore, research has indicated that (future) teachers’ stereotypes and attitudes differ depending on students’ backgrounds and appear to influence (future) teachers’ judgments. Based on theories of stereotype change, attitude change, and judgment formation, a short intervention was developed to change stereotypes and attitudes and to reduce judgment biases. In an experimental study (within- and between-subject design) with N = 215 preservice teacher students, the effectiveness of the intervention on stereotype change, attitude change, and reduction of judgment distortions was tested. The results showed hypothesized effects of the intervention on stereotypes and attitudes towards students with an immigration background and students with low social status. Furthermore, the intervention showed effects on preservice teacher students’ judgments, especially for low-status students.

Ever since Thomas and Znaniecki (1918) first suggested that the study of attitudes should be the central problem of social psychology, researchers in the area have placed a great deal of emphasis on the theory and measurement of attitude and attitude change. This concentration on attitudes was especially facilitated by a rapid development of methods for measuring attitudes and attitude change. As a result of the availability of measurement techniques and this concentration of emphasis and effort, social psychologists have provided, and are continuing to provide, a large body of literature concerning both attitudes and opinions.

IntroductionEmpirical data on the effectiveness of BRM trainings is still sparse and as far as studies were published, not very encouraging. Both O’Connor (2011) and Rottger, Vetter & Kowalski (201...

Dating violence is a serious and prevalent public health problem that is associated with numerous negative physical and psychological health outcomes, and yet there has been limited evaluation of prevention programs on college campuses. A recent innovation in campus prevention focuses on mobilizing bystanders to take action. To date, bystander programs have mainly been compared with no treatment control groups raising questions about what value is added to dating violence prevention by focusing on bystanders. This study compared a single 90-min bystander education program for dating violence prevention with a traditional awareness education program, as well as with a no education control group. Using a quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test design with follow-up at 2 months, a sample of predominately freshmen college students was randomized to either the bystander ( n = 369) or traditional awareness ( n = 376) dating violence education program. A non-randomized control group of freshmen students who did not receive any education were also surveyed ( n = 224). Students completed measures of attitudes, including rape myth acceptance, bystander efficacy, and intent to help as well as behavioral measures related to bystander action and victimization. Results showed that the bystander education program was more effective at changing attitudes, beliefs, efficacy, intentions, and self-reported behaviors compared with the traditional awareness education program. Both programs were significantly more effective than no education. The findings of this study have important implications for future dating violence prevention educational programming, emphasizing the value of bystander education programs for primary dating violence prevention among college students.

This research aims to determine the significance of the difference in science learning results between the group of fifth-grade students in Gugus I Elementary Schools, North Kuta District, in the school year of 2017/2018, that take lessons with the multimedia-assisted probing-prompting learning model and the group of students that take lessons with the conventional learning. The design of this research is a quasi-experimental research with the nonequivalent control group design. The population of this research are all the fifth-grade students of Gugus I Elementary Schools in North Kuta District that still implement the KTSP, which consists of 10 classes with a total of 339 students. The sampling is conducted using the random sampling technique. The sample in this research are the students of class VB in SD (Elementary School) No.7 Dalung, with 36 students as the experiment group and the students of class VB in SD No.4 Dalung with 28 students as the control group. The data collection is conducted using the test method in the form of the multiple choice objective test. The science learning results are analyzed using the t-test. Based on the average the experiment groups =80,89 &gt; the control group =72,85, which means that the multimedia-assisted probing-prompting learning model has an influence on the science learning result. Based on the hypothesis test, tvalues =4,517&gt; ttable =2,000, with dk=62 and a significance level of 5%. Based on the test criteria, H0 is rejected and Ha is accepted. Thus, it can be interpreted there is a significant difference the science learning result between the group of students that were taught using the multimedia-assisted probing-prompting learning model and the students that were taught using the conventional learning. It can be concluded that the the multimedia-assisted probing-prompting learning model has an influence on the science learning result of the fifth-grade students in Gugus I Elementary School, North Kuta District, in the school year of 2017/2018.&#x0D; &#x0D; Keywords : probing prompting, multimedia, science learning result

A Depression Training Session With Consumer Educators to Reduce Stigmatizing Views and Improve Pharmacists’ Depression Care Attitudes and Practices

ABSTRACTA socioscientific issues integrated instruction was used in the study to resolve college students attitude towards sexually-themed science content. Some 200 college students participated in the study as experimental and control groups. The former consisting of 98 students from one college was taught the content using the socioscientific issues integrated instruction. The later with 102 students from another college was taught the same content using a traditionally teacher dominated lectures. Both groups were taught over a period of eight weeks. Qualitative and quantitative data were obtained before and after the intervention. The quantitative data were analysed using analysis of covariance. The results revealed that there was a significant difference between the experimental and the control groups (F (1, 247) = 426.97, p = .00, partial eta squared = 0.64) where the experimental group showed a significant change in attitude towards the content studied. The qualitative data obtained some experimental group students showed a change in attitude the second interview. It was concluded that the use of the approach has significantly made the college students feel comfortable and confident to learn and teach the content.