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The Identification of Adoption‐Proneness Among Secondary Home Economics Teachers
Author(s) -
Oscarson David J.
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
home economics research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.372
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1552-3934
pISSN - 0046-7774
DOI - 10.1177/1077727x7700600206
Subject(s) - vocational education , perception , identification (biology) , psychology , family and consumer science , sample (material) , cluster (spacecraft) , mathematics education , variables , variable (mathematics) , social psychology , demographic economics , pedagogy , statistics , mathematics , economics , computer science , mathematical analysis , chemistry , botany , chromatography , neuroscience , biology , programming language
This study was conducted in two phases. The first phase examined 19 independent variables relating to the personal characteristics of 202 vocational teachers from the state of Virginia for the purpose of explaining a criterion variable, proneness toward the adoption of educational innovations. It was established that a teacher's age, number of professional publications read monthly, number of years teaching in the present school district, satis faction with teaching, and perception of influence an academic teacher should have on a vocational teacher's classroom procedures all related to adoption‐proneness (dependent variable). Phase two of the study isolated 39 home economics teachers from the composite sample in order to determine whether certain groups existed within this subsample that had similar characteristics based upon their measured degree of adoption‐proneness and personal characteristics found significant in phase one of the study. Cluster analysis indicated that the home economics teachers could be clustered into three distinct groups. Furthermore, there were indications that certain clusters existed that were not fully explained in the first phase of the study. The study should prove particularly useful to those responsible for the diffusion of educational innovations, especially across broad geographical areas.