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Modern societal functions for meeting basic needs contribute to the lack of understanding many Americans have about agriculture's connection to human health and environmental quality. Consequently, this limited understanding has produced a need to measure agricultural literacy to develop programming or enhance existing agricultural educational efforts. Research literature has identified the need for agricultural literacy instruments to be developed that measure current understandings. The National Agricultural Literacy Outcomes (NALOs) served as the conceptual framework for the development of an agricultural literacy criterion referenced progressive measurement tool for grades 3-5. A theoretical framework using assessment models was used to develop items to measure agricultural literacy in three proficiency stages: exposure, factual literacy, and applicable proficiency. A modified Delphi method was used to create the Longhurst Murray Agricultural Literacy Instrument (LMALI) with the intent of assessing elementary student understanding of the NALOs. Items were tested with students from regional representative states using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and discriminant analysis in the investigation. The development process resulted in a validated 15-item instrument for grades 3-5. Overall, the instrument provides a way for educators and stakeholders to measure agricultural literacy based on proficiency stages within the five NALO themes.

Visions of science teaching and learning in the newest U.S. standards documents are dramatically different than those found in most classrooms. This research addresses these differences through closely examining one professional development (PD) project that connects teacher learning and teacher practice with student learning/achievement. This study examines the effects on eighth grade science teachers and their students in the context of a PD focused on the integration of information communication technologies and reformed science teaching practices. Findings from this investigation suggest that teachers who participated in PD for two years learned more about technology, improved their practice, and their students' achievement was significantly higher compared to teachers who participated in one year of the PD or non-participating peers. Science educators face multiple challenges as they attempt to deliver instruction in fundamentally different ways than what they experienced as learners. The delivery of this professional learning suggest that PD for science teachers should include educative learning experiences if understandings of reforms supported by research are to be realized.

Objective: A school-based nutrition education minimal intervention (MI) was evaluated. Design: The design was experimental, with random assignment at the school level. Setting: Seven schools were randomly assigned as experimental, and 7 as delayed-treatment. Participants: The experimental group included 551 teens, and the delayed treatment group included 329 teens. Intervention: The minimal intervention was "Present and Prevent," a commercially available PowerPoint program presented in two 30-minute time slots over 1 week. Main Outcome Measures: The dependent variables were nutrition knowledge, attitudes, peer and family influences, behavioral intentions, and program satisfaction. The independent variable was group assignment. Analyses: A matched-pairs and 2-sample t test were used respectively to assess within-group and between-group changes. Results: Significant experimental posttest improvements occurred in the following: knowledge (P less than 0.001); intention to maintain a healthy body weight because of importance to friends (P less than 0.001); and intention to eat fewer fried foods, eat fewer sweets, look more at food labels, and limit TV watching (all P less than 0.001). Program satisfaction measures were significantly associated with each of the healthy weight maintenance behavioral intentions. Conclusions and Implications: The MI teen obesity prevention program made an impact on nutrition knowledge and positive behavioral intentions in only 2 classroom sessions and was well received by participants.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted the health of older adults. In addition to a higher risk for serious illness and death, the societal value of senescent adults was challenged. There have been conflicting results reported in the research literature regarding positive and negative stereotypes of older adults, and areliable and valid assessment tool to measure content (existence of astereotype) and strength (intensity of astereotype) is unavailable. To address issues with instruments employed to measure ageist stereotypes, researchers developed the Stereotypes Content and Strength Survey. University students (n=483) were directed to "think about their perceptions of older adults" and indicate how many they believed could be described using the terms listed on a5-point Likert-type scale from none-all. Response categories for each descriptive item were dichotomized into 1 = "some, most or all" and 0 = "none or few." Based on an odds analyses of 117 items, 84 met the content criteria to be considered astereotype regarding older adults. Using the criteria for strength, items were categorized into 36 "strong," 25 "moderate," and 23 "weak" stereotypes. Assessing the content and strength of stereotypic beliefs using this procedure may contribute to major bias influencing ageist perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives Stereotypes are beliefs about a particular group often adopted to bypass complex information processing. Like racism and other forms of discrimination, ageism affects individuals and society as a whole. The purpose of the study was to analyze the Stereotype Content and Strength Survey (SCSS) designed to update assessment tools commonly used to measure stereotypes of older adults. Research Design and Methods An updated survey was developed including aging-related descriptive items from previously published studies. Students enrolled at two Midwestern universities (n = 491) were directed to think about their perceptions of "older adults" and select the proportion they believed could be described by the items used in the tool. Response categories for each descriptive item were dichotomized and operationalized to be a strong stereotype if the collapsed response percentage was significantly ≥80%. Results A Principal Axis Factor analysis and Direct Oblim rotation was computed on 117 descriptive items representing positive, negative, and physical characteristics, resulting in a 3-factor model with acceptable psychometric properties. Cronbach alpha analyses revealed reliable scales for negative (α =.92), positive (α =.88), and physical (α =.81) stereotypes. Of 117 descriptive items, 33 emerged as strong stereotypes including 30 positive, 2 physical, and 1 negative item. Discussion and Implications This updated assessment has the potential to contribute to an understanding of the existence of age-related stereotypes as well as the strength, or the proportion of older adults who could be described by each of the items used in the SCSS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a critical need for accurate and standardized wildlife-vehicle collision data, because it is the underpinning of mitigation projects that protect both drivers and wildlife. Collecting data of this magnitude requires an efficient data collection system. Currently, there is no widely adopted system that is both efficient and accurate. Our objective was to develop and test an integrated smartphone-based system for reporting wildlife-vehicle collision (WVC) data. The WVC Reporter system we developed consisted of a mobile web application for data collection, a database for centralized storage of data, and a desktop web application for viewing data. During the first year of use, 6,822 animal carcasses were reported using the WVC Reporter. The desktop web application improved access to WVC data and allowed users to easily visualize wildlife-vehicle collision patterns at multiple scales. The WVC Reporter integrated several modern technologies into a seamless method for collecting, managing, and using WVC data. As a result, the system increased efficiency in reporting, improved accuracy, and enhanced visualization of data. The development costs for the system were minor relative to the potential benefits of having spatially accurate and temporally current wildlife-vehicle collision data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses repeated-measures ANOVA design to examine linear trends in audit fees of US companies. Audit fee trends are analyzed across the effects of regulatory oversight, accelerated or non-accelerated SOX filing status, and time (2002-2009). Accelerated filers showed stronger positive linear trends than did non-accelerated filers for the entire eight-year period. However, non-accelerated companies showed stronger positive linear trends than did accelerated companies during the latter four-year period (2006-2009). We attribute this result to additional audit work required in the earlier four-year period (2002-2005) by accelerated companies to meet the requirements of SOX 404 during the earlier period. We attribute the slowing trend in the latter four-year period to the increasing maturity of the internal control systems for accelerated companies as well as changes in auditing standards that allowed auditors to more efficiently allocate auditing resources based on audit risk for these accelerated firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the previous work in D-optimal design for regression models with correlated errors focused on polynomial models with a single predictor variable, in large part because of the intractability of an analytic solution. In this paper, we present a modified, improved simulated annealing algorithm, providing practical approaches to specifications of the annealing cooling parameters, thresholds, and search neighborhoods for the perturbation scheme, which finds approximate D-optimal designs for 2-way and 3-way polynomial regression for a variety of specific correlation structures with a given correlation coefficient. Results in each correlated-errors case are compared with traditional simulated annealing algorithm, that is, the SA algorithm without our improvement. Our improved simulated annealing results had generally higher D-efficiency than traditional simulated annealing algorithm, especially when the correlation parameter was well away from 0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]