08832323.2010.542502
Journal of Education for Business
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
Impact of Cooperative Business Management
Curriculum on Secondary Student Attitudes
Gregory McKee & Stacy K. Duffield
To cite this article: Gregory McKee & Stacy K. Duffield (2011) Impact of Cooperative Business
Management Curriculum on Secondary Student Attitudes, Journal of Education for Business,
86:6, 357-363, DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2010.542502
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08832323.2010.542502
Published online: 29 Aug 2011.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 292
View related articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjeb20
Download by: [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji]
Date: 11 January 2016, At: 22:21
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR BUSINESS, 86: 357–363, 2011
C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Copyright
ISSN: 0883-2323 print / 1940-3356 online
DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2010.542502
Impact of Cooperative Business Management
Curriculum on Secondary Student Attitudes
Gregory McKee and Stacy K. Duffield
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:21 11 January 2016
North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota, USA
The authors examined the effect a curriculum about cooperative businesses had on high school
student attitudes toward these businesses. Cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions
were measured before and after participating in the curriculum. Older high school students
increased their attitudes toward cooperatives more than did younger students. Students with
prior exposure to cooperatives had increases in positive attitudes toward cooperatives. Larger
increases were increased in positive attitudes in female students than male students. Finally,
students in regions of North Dakota with relatively fewer cooperatives per square mile had
larger increases in positive attitudes.
Keywords: attitudes, cooperative businesses, curriculum, education, gender
A recent study by the University of Wisconsin (Deller,
Hoyt, Hueth, & Sundaram-Stukel, 2009) about the national
economic impact of cooperatives and the summer 2009 discussion of the role of the cooperative business model in providing health-care services suggests a demand for literacy
about how this business model functions. In 2009, approximately 29,285 businesses operated as cooperatives in the U.S.
economy (Deller et al.). These cooperatives own $3.1 trillion
in assets, earn $154 billion in annual income, and generate
856,310 full-time jobs, paying $25 billion in wages annually. Nevertheless, statements by Glozer (Mufson, 2009) and
Tonsanger (2009) about how cooperatives could serve the
health-care industry, for example, indicate that conflicting
concepts about cooperatives pervade the public mind.
In their most traditional sense, businesses are identified
as cooperatives based on their ownership, governance, and
profit distribution practices (Zeuli & Cropp, 2004). Although
recent changes in the laws of some states permit ownership
by other groups (Cook & Chaddad, 2004; Paul, 2007), cooperatives, historically, are owned by their users. Owners contribute equity through direct investment, retained profits, or
other means. Such equity enables the cooperative to finance
its ability to provide goods and services over an extended
period of time, and to qualify for loans that provide additional financing. Control over the cooperative is exercised
Correspondence should be addressed to Stacy K. Duffield, North Dakota
State University, School of Education, P.O. Box 5057, Fargo, ND 58105,
USA. E-mail: stacy.duffield@ndsu.edu
through votes cast by its users. Traditionally, users also elect
a board of directors. These are the members’ agents, or representatives, in the management process. Present demographic
trends indicate future demand for employees who understand
cooperative business administration. Present management
and staff in cooperative businesses are nearing retirement.
Many cooperative businesses were started in the decades of
the 1910s, 1940s, 1970s, and 1990s, suggesting many present
members are unaware of the effort required to start a cooperative and changes in the distribution of economic benefits to
their communities if the cooperative is replaced by a conventional corporation. These conditions are generating increasing concern among cooperative business professionals.
The North Dakota economy is served by many cooperatives. It has the third largest number of agricultural
cooperatives of any state in the United States (Deville,
Penn, & Eversull, 2009). Almost the entire geographic area
of the state is served by telecommunications cooperatives
(D. Crothers, personal communication, 2009). There were
more memberships in electric cooperatives in 2008 than
there were households in the 2000 census (D. Hill, personal
communication, 2009). Credit unions serve over 201,000
members, approximately half of North Dakota’s adult population (National Credit Union Association, 2009). Given that
cooperatives are governed by their user–owners, and given
that high school students will become the user–owners of the
cooperatives in the near future, literacy about the purpose
and function of cooperatives is vital if these members
eventually make business decisions that continue to allow
economic benefits to be created by cooperative businesses.
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:21 11 January 2016
358
G. McKEE AND S. K. DUFFIELD
To the best of our knowledge, no other studies have been
conducted to measure high school student literacy about cooperative businesses in the United States or North Dakota.
Anecdotal conversations we had with agricultural education
teachers and with state Future Farmers of America administrators suggest that no standardized curriculum exists in the
state, and only a handful of teachers present self-developed
material about cooperatives.
The present study was designed to measure North Dakota
high school student literacy about cooperatives and determine whether participating in a curriculum about cooperatives would influence student attitudes toward cooperatives.
Faculty in North Dakota high school career and technical education (formerly known as vocational education) and U.S.
history classes were invited to offer a nine-lesson curriculum about cooperative businesses during the fall of 2009.
The curriculum was designed to provide basic knowledge
about cooperatives through activities that stimulated student
and teacher learning about cooperatives. Assessments were
used to record changes in student attitudes about cooperatives. Empirical methods were used to test the hypothesis
that students who participate in curriculum about cooperative
businesses experience a change in attitude toward cooperatives, as measured by changes in their cognitive, affective,
and behavioral attitude components.
LITERATURE
Attitude
Attitude has been defined as a mental and neural state of
readiness to respond, organized through experience, exerting a directive and/or dynamic influence on behavior (Reid,
2006). Attitudes are formed in several different ways, including direct experience. The greater the exposure a learner has
toward a subject, the more positive the resulting attitude is
likely to be (Petty, Wegener, & Fabrigar, 1997). This complex
construct comprises three elements: cognitive (knowledge),
affective (feeling), and behavioral (action) elements.
The knowledge and feelings a learner has toward a subject
may lead to a commitment to that subject. Gender can also
make a difference in attitude and attitude change. In fields
traditionally thought of as male specialties, such as mathematics and computer technology, young women generally
have more negative attitudes toward them than young men
do (Wilkins & Ma, 2003).
Measuring Attitude
Attitude is viewed as a continuum ranging from positive to
negative (Petty et al., 1997), supporting use of a rating scale
measurement tool such as a Likert-type scale. Reid (2006)
noted several limitations with rating scales: (a) there is no
way to ensure equal spacing of the scale, (b) values on one
item may not be comparable to those on another item, (c)
correlations assume normality, and (d) similar scores may be
obtained for very different attitudinal patterns.
Because attitude is difficult to measure, Reid (2006) cautioned researchers not to attempt to prove internal consistency
because the items all measure at least slightly different things.
Instead, he recommended focusing on validity. Although
there is no absolute way to establish validity, sense checks can
be made. One way to do this is to compare attitude measures
before and after the checks between two different groups.
Reid (2006) warned that “means are meaningless”
(p. 13). He strongly discouraged adding up scores to form
an attitude score because the items are different and should
not be added together. Rather, he recommended analyzing
each item separately. Even if analyzing separately, trends
and factors may still be apparent.
Impact of Teachers on Students’ Knowledge and
Attitudes
Studies have revealed that when teachers are given content
training, not only does the teacher’s knowledge increase,
but their students’ knowledge about that content also increases (Allgood & Walstad, 1999; McCutchen et al., 2002).
The same is true for teacher interest: “If the teacher has little knowledge, interest or enthusiasm toward that subject,
a negative attitude may easily be conveyed to the student”
(Breen, 2001, p. 64). On the other hand, teachers who show
a high interest in a subject may affect the student positively
and support learning (Breen; Lazar, Orpet, & Demos, 1973).
Because a student’s attitude toward the subject matter determines what is learned and retained (Breen), a teacher’s
attitude is an important part of the learning process.
Student knowledge and attitudes are open to change and
development (Reid, 2006). Lazar et al. (1973) contended that
a particular instructional process is likely to facilitate this
change. They recommended dividing instructional time into
three segments: information delivery, large-group discussion,
and small-group discussion groups that look at problem situations presented by the instructor. Marzano, Pickering, and
Pollock (2001) went beyond the structure of the lesson and
identified nine particular instructional strategies that have
been found to promote student learning and achievement
including strategies such as summarizing and note taking,
identifying similarities and differences, using nonlinguistic
representations, and using questioning.
Based on this conceptual framework, we tested the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1 (H 1 ): Changes in high school student attitudes
toward cooperatives would be unaffected by participating in a curriculum about cooperative businesses.
H 2 : Changes in attitude toward cooperative businesses would
be unrelated to gender.
H 3 : Changes in attitude toward cooperative businesses would
be unrelated to student year in school.
IMPACT OF CBM CURRICULUM
H 4 : Changes in attitude toward cooperatives would be unrelated to awareness of interactions with cooperatives
prior to participating in the curriculum.
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:21 11 January 2016
METHOD
Students form attitudes about cooperatives based on their
knowledge of, interactions with, and feelings about cooperatives (Bagozzi & Burnkrant, 1979). The purpose of this
study was to determine whether high school students who
participate in curriculum about cooperative businesses experience a change in attitude toward cooperatives. We conducted a longitudinal analysis comparing student knowledge, interactions, and feelings about cooperatives based on
a pre- and posttest administered to high school students before and after participating in a curriculum about cooperative
businesses.
Lessons were structured in four parts: an introduction to
gain foundational knowledge, practice and interaction with
content and ideas, an independent and collaborative extension of content and ideas to promote higher level thinking,
and a teacher-led wrap-up to connect ideas. Formative and
summative assessments were integrated into the lessons. A
transmission approach to teaching was avoided in favor of
student-directed learning (Powell, 2005). Student learning
was supported with graphic organizers, U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) text and various web resources.
The unit is standards based, using the national agricultural
education standards. The standards were unpacked (Wiggins
& McTighe, 2005) into unit outcomes, and the lessons were
designed with the end goals in mind. Student-centered learning objectives targeted varied levels of thinking based on
Bloom’s taxonomy. For each lesson, the objectives begin
with lower level, foundational thinking, such as identify, define, and describe, and move toward higher level thinking,
such as compare and explain.
Activities were designed to integrate the best practices
described by Marzano et al. (2001), including determining
similarities and differences, summarizing and note taking,
providing opportunity for practice, formative assessment for
ongoing and timely feedback, and using cueing and questioning to extend student thinking. Each lesson was intentionally
planned to include interaction between students and content
and students with peers and teacher. Puzzles and games were
included to make the lessons fun for students. Finally, the
lessons encourage collaboration among students, which has
been found to promote higher levels of learning than individual learning (Marzano et al.).
The lessons were authored by eight North Dakota high
school teachers and one college instructor. Teachers met during a 1.5-day workshop to author the lessons. Teachers were
divided into teams of two or three to draft lessons. Then two
pairs of teachers reviewed each lesson for completeness and
suitability for classroom use. The reviewers provided sug-
359
gested revisions, and the teachers modified the lessons in
response to the suggested revisions. We then compiled the
lessons into a single unit and distributed them to interested
teachers via mail and website posting.
Changes in student knowledge and feelings about cooperative businesses and awareness of interactions with cooperative businesses were measured using a pre- and posttest
survey. The survey was divided into four sections. The first
section contained 27 questions that measured student knowledge about cooperatives. Three modes of questions were
used, including multiple-choice, true–false, and open-ended
answer. Results are reported as the percentage of correct answers.
The second section measured student feelings about cooperatives. Twelve questions measuring student feelings about
cooperatives, based on Garkovich, Bokemeier, Hardesty,
Allen, and Carl (1987), Cobia and Navarro (1972), and
Torgerson, Plank, and Heffernan (1972), were developed to
investigate student feelings about cooperatives. Students indicated agreement with statements about their feelings toward cooperatives on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging
from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Results
are reported as a percentage of points out of a maximum
of 60.
The third section measured student awareness of their
interactions with cooperatives. Students were asked if they
were members of cooperatives and whether they had done
business with cooperatives. Negative responses were coded
as 0 and positive responses were coded as 1 for both questions. Because active members are patrons, by definition,
students with interaction question scores greater than zero
were categorized as high awareness, whereas students who
answered no to both questions were categorized as low
awareness. The fourth section included questions to measure
demographic information, including year in school, gender,
and the class in which the lessons were received.
The population for the student survey was all North
Dakota high school students enrolled in agricultural education and social studies classes during fall 2009. A nonrandom sample of data was collected from 47 social studies
students and 127 agricultural education students. These students collectively attend 16 high schools scattered across
North Dakota and were chosen because their teachers volunteered to teach the newly developed curriculum.
High school administrators were contacted before delivering the curriculum to the students in order to verify that
collecting data about changes in student attitude would be
consistent with school policy. Students and parents were informed of the study and were assured that, although pre- and
posttests would be linked to the same student, student identity would not be recorded. Administrators, students, and
their families were also assured that results would be provided only in summary form.
Because of the role of teacher attitudes have in forming student attitudes about cooperative, a separate survey
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:21 11 January 2016
360
G. McKEE AND S. K. DUFFIELD
was administered to teachers to measure their attitudes about
cooperatives before teaching the lessons. The survey was
divided into four sections. The first section contained 10
questions that measured teacher knowledge about cooperatives. Only open-ended answer type questions were used.
The second section measured teacher feelings about cooperatives. Sixteen questions about teacher feelings toward cooperatives, based on Garkovich et al. (1987), Cobia and Navarro
(1972), and Torgerson et al. (1972), were developed to investigate teacher feelings about cooperatives. Yes–no type
questions were used. The third section measured teacher
interactions with cooperatives. This section included 12
yes–no type questions asking whether teachers had participated in a range of activities with cooperatives. The fourth
section included questions to measure demographic information, including age, gender, level of education, and teaching
experience.
The teacher survey was administered on surveymonkey.com. Composite scores for teacher accuracy of knowledge and feelings about and interactions with cooperatives
were generated. The population for this survey included all
high school social studies and agriculture teachers in North
Dakota. In 2008, this population included 89 high school
agriculture teachers and an unknown number of social studies teachers. Too few teachers (N = 15) responded to the
survey to provide meaningful statistics from these data. Results from the survey represent 16% of all North Dakota
agricultural teachers.
Teachers submitted completed student pre- and posttests.
We graded the knowledge section of the tests, and then
recorded the number correct and responses to Sections 2, 3,
and 4 in a database. All hypotheses were tested using dependent sample t tests using SAS (version 9.2). An alpha level
of .05 was used as a critical value for statistical significance.
RESULTS
Approximately 65% of the respondents identified themselves
as young men. Approximately 70% of the students identified
themselves as juniors or seniors, the remainder as freshman
or sophomores.
The first research objective was to measure how high
school student knowledge and perceptions toward cooperative businesses align before and after participating in a curriculum about cooperative businesses. Changes in attitude
were based on three components: knowledge, feelings, and
awareness. Average student knowledge prior to completing
the curriculum was 38.9%. After participating in the curriculum, 89.4% of students increased in their knowledge.
The average increase in knowledge was 23% relative to their
knowledge score on the pretest. Increases in knowledge were
statistically significant. A decrease in knowledge about cooperatives was expressed in 8.4% of students on the posttest
as compared to the pretest. It is unclear whether this reflects
an actual decrease in understanding or in the level of effort
exercised by students in completing the survey.
The average student feelings toward cooperatives score
prior to completing the curriculum was 59 (SD = 0.131).
An increase in the feelings score was experienced by 56.4%
of students, with the average increase being 4.8 relative to
the pretest. Increases in the feelings score were statistically
significant for the entire sample. A decrease in the feelings
toward cooperatives score was expressed by 33% of students
on the posttest as compared with the pretest, with an average decrease of 12.7%, larger than the average increase in
the feelings score. Students with decreased feelings scores
had smaller than average (21.6%) increases in knowledge,
whereas students with increased feelings scores had larger
than average (24.3%) increases in knowledge.
Finally, 54.6% of students indicated high awareness about
interacting with cooperatives at the start of the curriculum.
This number increased for 38% of students, and decreased for
9.5% of students at the end of the curriculum. This indicates
that at the time students started the curriculum, more than
one third of students either were members of or had done
business with cooperatives and did not realize it, or had made
a deliberate effort to conduct business with cooperatives by
the time they completed the posttest. A smaller group came
to realize they either were not members of cooperative or had
not done business with them.
Together, these results indicate that the lessons statistically
increase high school student attitudes about cooperatives.
Knowledge of, feelings about, and awareness of interacting
with cooperatives statistically increased for most students
after participating in the curriculum.
Gender
The null hypothesis that changes in student attitudes about
cooperatives were unrelated to gender was tested. Average
knowledge was 38.4% for young men and 39.7% for young
men prior to participating in the curriculum. The curriculum
resulted in increases in knowledge for 92.2% of young men
(n = 115) and 87.1% of young men (n = 62) students. The average increase in knowledge for young men was 21.1% and
26.4% for young women. Increases for both genders were
statistically significant and statistically different from each
other. Hence, female students knew more about cooperatives
before participating in the curriculum, and learned more than
their male student counterparts during the curriculum. To the
extent knowledge about business management is a subject
dominated by young men, this result is contrary to the literature cited previously about young women in traditionally
male-dominated areas. A possible explanation for this result
may include differences in aptitude between young men and
young women in the sample. No data were gathered to test
this.
There were not statistically significant differences in
changes in feelings scores between genders (Table 1).
IMPACT OF CBM CURRICULUM
361
TABLE 1
Dependent Sample t Test on Attitude Change Toward Cooperatives, by Gender
Student attribute
Young women (n = 62)
Knowledge
Feeling
Awareness of interaction
Young men (n = 115)
Knowledge
Feeling
Awareness of interaction
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:21 11 January 2016
∗p
Start
End
Change
0.396
0.599
0.605
0.660
0.632
0.798
0.264
∗
0.033
∗
0.194
0.384
0.585
0.691
0.596
0.642
0.746
0.211
0.057
∗
0.053
∗
∗
t
p
11.31 (df = 61)
2.22 (df = 61)
6.81 (df = 61)
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
Impact of Cooperative Business Management
Curriculum on Secondary Student Attitudes
Gregory McKee & Stacy K. Duffield
To cite this article: Gregory McKee & Stacy K. Duffield (2011) Impact of Cooperative Business
Management Curriculum on Secondary Student Attitudes, Journal of Education for Business,
86:6, 357-363, DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2010.542502
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08832323.2010.542502
Published online: 29 Aug 2011.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 292
View related articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjeb20
Download by: [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji]
Date: 11 January 2016, At: 22:21
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR BUSINESS, 86: 357–363, 2011
C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Copyright
ISSN: 0883-2323 print / 1940-3356 online
DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2010.542502
Impact of Cooperative Business Management
Curriculum on Secondary Student Attitudes
Gregory McKee and Stacy K. Duffield
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:21 11 January 2016
North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota, USA
The authors examined the effect a curriculum about cooperative businesses had on high school
student attitudes toward these businesses. Cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions
were measured before and after participating in the curriculum. Older high school students
increased their attitudes toward cooperatives more than did younger students. Students with
prior exposure to cooperatives had increases in positive attitudes toward cooperatives. Larger
increases were increased in positive attitudes in female students than male students. Finally,
students in regions of North Dakota with relatively fewer cooperatives per square mile had
larger increases in positive attitudes.
Keywords: attitudes, cooperative businesses, curriculum, education, gender
A recent study by the University of Wisconsin (Deller,
Hoyt, Hueth, & Sundaram-Stukel, 2009) about the national
economic impact of cooperatives and the summer 2009 discussion of the role of the cooperative business model in providing health-care services suggests a demand for literacy
about how this business model functions. In 2009, approximately 29,285 businesses operated as cooperatives in the U.S.
economy (Deller et al.). These cooperatives own $3.1 trillion
in assets, earn $154 billion in annual income, and generate
856,310 full-time jobs, paying $25 billion in wages annually. Nevertheless, statements by Glozer (Mufson, 2009) and
Tonsanger (2009) about how cooperatives could serve the
health-care industry, for example, indicate that conflicting
concepts about cooperatives pervade the public mind.
In their most traditional sense, businesses are identified
as cooperatives based on their ownership, governance, and
profit distribution practices (Zeuli & Cropp, 2004). Although
recent changes in the laws of some states permit ownership
by other groups (Cook & Chaddad, 2004; Paul, 2007), cooperatives, historically, are owned by their users. Owners contribute equity through direct investment, retained profits, or
other means. Such equity enables the cooperative to finance
its ability to provide goods and services over an extended
period of time, and to qualify for loans that provide additional financing. Control over the cooperative is exercised
Correspondence should be addressed to Stacy K. Duffield, North Dakota
State University, School of Education, P.O. Box 5057, Fargo, ND 58105,
USA. E-mail: stacy.duffield@ndsu.edu
through votes cast by its users. Traditionally, users also elect
a board of directors. These are the members’ agents, or representatives, in the management process. Present demographic
trends indicate future demand for employees who understand
cooperative business administration. Present management
and staff in cooperative businesses are nearing retirement.
Many cooperative businesses were started in the decades of
the 1910s, 1940s, 1970s, and 1990s, suggesting many present
members are unaware of the effort required to start a cooperative and changes in the distribution of economic benefits to
their communities if the cooperative is replaced by a conventional corporation. These conditions are generating increasing concern among cooperative business professionals.
The North Dakota economy is served by many cooperatives. It has the third largest number of agricultural
cooperatives of any state in the United States (Deville,
Penn, & Eversull, 2009). Almost the entire geographic area
of the state is served by telecommunications cooperatives
(D. Crothers, personal communication, 2009). There were
more memberships in electric cooperatives in 2008 than
there were households in the 2000 census (D. Hill, personal
communication, 2009). Credit unions serve over 201,000
members, approximately half of North Dakota’s adult population (National Credit Union Association, 2009). Given that
cooperatives are governed by their user–owners, and given
that high school students will become the user–owners of the
cooperatives in the near future, literacy about the purpose
and function of cooperatives is vital if these members
eventually make business decisions that continue to allow
economic benefits to be created by cooperative businesses.
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:21 11 January 2016
358
G. McKEE AND S. K. DUFFIELD
To the best of our knowledge, no other studies have been
conducted to measure high school student literacy about cooperative businesses in the United States or North Dakota.
Anecdotal conversations we had with agricultural education
teachers and with state Future Farmers of America administrators suggest that no standardized curriculum exists in the
state, and only a handful of teachers present self-developed
material about cooperatives.
The present study was designed to measure North Dakota
high school student literacy about cooperatives and determine whether participating in a curriculum about cooperatives would influence student attitudes toward cooperatives.
Faculty in North Dakota high school career and technical education (formerly known as vocational education) and U.S.
history classes were invited to offer a nine-lesson curriculum about cooperative businesses during the fall of 2009.
The curriculum was designed to provide basic knowledge
about cooperatives through activities that stimulated student
and teacher learning about cooperatives. Assessments were
used to record changes in student attitudes about cooperatives. Empirical methods were used to test the hypothesis
that students who participate in curriculum about cooperative
businesses experience a change in attitude toward cooperatives, as measured by changes in their cognitive, affective,
and behavioral attitude components.
LITERATURE
Attitude
Attitude has been defined as a mental and neural state of
readiness to respond, organized through experience, exerting a directive and/or dynamic influence on behavior (Reid,
2006). Attitudes are formed in several different ways, including direct experience. The greater the exposure a learner has
toward a subject, the more positive the resulting attitude is
likely to be (Petty, Wegener, & Fabrigar, 1997). This complex
construct comprises three elements: cognitive (knowledge),
affective (feeling), and behavioral (action) elements.
The knowledge and feelings a learner has toward a subject
may lead to a commitment to that subject. Gender can also
make a difference in attitude and attitude change. In fields
traditionally thought of as male specialties, such as mathematics and computer technology, young women generally
have more negative attitudes toward them than young men
do (Wilkins & Ma, 2003).
Measuring Attitude
Attitude is viewed as a continuum ranging from positive to
negative (Petty et al., 1997), supporting use of a rating scale
measurement tool such as a Likert-type scale. Reid (2006)
noted several limitations with rating scales: (a) there is no
way to ensure equal spacing of the scale, (b) values on one
item may not be comparable to those on another item, (c)
correlations assume normality, and (d) similar scores may be
obtained for very different attitudinal patterns.
Because attitude is difficult to measure, Reid (2006) cautioned researchers not to attempt to prove internal consistency
because the items all measure at least slightly different things.
Instead, he recommended focusing on validity. Although
there is no absolute way to establish validity, sense checks can
be made. One way to do this is to compare attitude measures
before and after the checks between two different groups.
Reid (2006) warned that “means are meaningless”
(p. 13). He strongly discouraged adding up scores to form
an attitude score because the items are different and should
not be added together. Rather, he recommended analyzing
each item separately. Even if analyzing separately, trends
and factors may still be apparent.
Impact of Teachers on Students’ Knowledge and
Attitudes
Studies have revealed that when teachers are given content
training, not only does the teacher’s knowledge increase,
but their students’ knowledge about that content also increases (Allgood & Walstad, 1999; McCutchen et al., 2002).
The same is true for teacher interest: “If the teacher has little knowledge, interest or enthusiasm toward that subject,
a negative attitude may easily be conveyed to the student”
(Breen, 2001, p. 64). On the other hand, teachers who show
a high interest in a subject may affect the student positively
and support learning (Breen; Lazar, Orpet, & Demos, 1973).
Because a student’s attitude toward the subject matter determines what is learned and retained (Breen), a teacher’s
attitude is an important part of the learning process.
Student knowledge and attitudes are open to change and
development (Reid, 2006). Lazar et al. (1973) contended that
a particular instructional process is likely to facilitate this
change. They recommended dividing instructional time into
three segments: information delivery, large-group discussion,
and small-group discussion groups that look at problem situations presented by the instructor. Marzano, Pickering, and
Pollock (2001) went beyond the structure of the lesson and
identified nine particular instructional strategies that have
been found to promote student learning and achievement
including strategies such as summarizing and note taking,
identifying similarities and differences, using nonlinguistic
representations, and using questioning.
Based on this conceptual framework, we tested the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1 (H 1 ): Changes in high school student attitudes
toward cooperatives would be unaffected by participating in a curriculum about cooperative businesses.
H 2 : Changes in attitude toward cooperative businesses would
be unrelated to gender.
H 3 : Changes in attitude toward cooperative businesses would
be unrelated to student year in school.
IMPACT OF CBM CURRICULUM
H 4 : Changes in attitude toward cooperatives would be unrelated to awareness of interactions with cooperatives
prior to participating in the curriculum.
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:21 11 January 2016
METHOD
Students form attitudes about cooperatives based on their
knowledge of, interactions with, and feelings about cooperatives (Bagozzi & Burnkrant, 1979). The purpose of this
study was to determine whether high school students who
participate in curriculum about cooperative businesses experience a change in attitude toward cooperatives. We conducted a longitudinal analysis comparing student knowledge, interactions, and feelings about cooperatives based on
a pre- and posttest administered to high school students before and after participating in a curriculum about cooperative
businesses.
Lessons were structured in four parts: an introduction to
gain foundational knowledge, practice and interaction with
content and ideas, an independent and collaborative extension of content and ideas to promote higher level thinking,
and a teacher-led wrap-up to connect ideas. Formative and
summative assessments were integrated into the lessons. A
transmission approach to teaching was avoided in favor of
student-directed learning (Powell, 2005). Student learning
was supported with graphic organizers, U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) text and various web resources.
The unit is standards based, using the national agricultural
education standards. The standards were unpacked (Wiggins
& McTighe, 2005) into unit outcomes, and the lessons were
designed with the end goals in mind. Student-centered learning objectives targeted varied levels of thinking based on
Bloom’s taxonomy. For each lesson, the objectives begin
with lower level, foundational thinking, such as identify, define, and describe, and move toward higher level thinking,
such as compare and explain.
Activities were designed to integrate the best practices
described by Marzano et al. (2001), including determining
similarities and differences, summarizing and note taking,
providing opportunity for practice, formative assessment for
ongoing and timely feedback, and using cueing and questioning to extend student thinking. Each lesson was intentionally
planned to include interaction between students and content
and students with peers and teacher. Puzzles and games were
included to make the lessons fun for students. Finally, the
lessons encourage collaboration among students, which has
been found to promote higher levels of learning than individual learning (Marzano et al.).
The lessons were authored by eight North Dakota high
school teachers and one college instructor. Teachers met during a 1.5-day workshop to author the lessons. Teachers were
divided into teams of two or three to draft lessons. Then two
pairs of teachers reviewed each lesson for completeness and
suitability for classroom use. The reviewers provided sug-
359
gested revisions, and the teachers modified the lessons in
response to the suggested revisions. We then compiled the
lessons into a single unit and distributed them to interested
teachers via mail and website posting.
Changes in student knowledge and feelings about cooperative businesses and awareness of interactions with cooperative businesses were measured using a pre- and posttest
survey. The survey was divided into four sections. The first
section contained 27 questions that measured student knowledge about cooperatives. Three modes of questions were
used, including multiple-choice, true–false, and open-ended
answer. Results are reported as the percentage of correct answers.
The second section measured student feelings about cooperatives. Twelve questions measuring student feelings about
cooperatives, based on Garkovich, Bokemeier, Hardesty,
Allen, and Carl (1987), Cobia and Navarro (1972), and
Torgerson, Plank, and Heffernan (1972), were developed to
investigate student feelings about cooperatives. Students indicated agreement with statements about their feelings toward cooperatives on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging
from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Results
are reported as a percentage of points out of a maximum
of 60.
The third section measured student awareness of their
interactions with cooperatives. Students were asked if they
were members of cooperatives and whether they had done
business with cooperatives. Negative responses were coded
as 0 and positive responses were coded as 1 for both questions. Because active members are patrons, by definition,
students with interaction question scores greater than zero
were categorized as high awareness, whereas students who
answered no to both questions were categorized as low
awareness. The fourth section included questions to measure
demographic information, including year in school, gender,
and the class in which the lessons were received.
The population for the student survey was all North
Dakota high school students enrolled in agricultural education and social studies classes during fall 2009. A nonrandom sample of data was collected from 47 social studies
students and 127 agricultural education students. These students collectively attend 16 high schools scattered across
North Dakota and were chosen because their teachers volunteered to teach the newly developed curriculum.
High school administrators were contacted before delivering the curriculum to the students in order to verify that
collecting data about changes in student attitude would be
consistent with school policy. Students and parents were informed of the study and were assured that, although pre- and
posttests would be linked to the same student, student identity would not be recorded. Administrators, students, and
their families were also assured that results would be provided only in summary form.
Because of the role of teacher attitudes have in forming student attitudes about cooperative, a separate survey
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:21 11 January 2016
360
G. McKEE AND S. K. DUFFIELD
was administered to teachers to measure their attitudes about
cooperatives before teaching the lessons. The survey was
divided into four sections. The first section contained 10
questions that measured teacher knowledge about cooperatives. Only open-ended answer type questions were used.
The second section measured teacher feelings about cooperatives. Sixteen questions about teacher feelings toward cooperatives, based on Garkovich et al. (1987), Cobia and Navarro
(1972), and Torgerson et al. (1972), were developed to investigate teacher feelings about cooperatives. Yes–no type
questions were used. The third section measured teacher
interactions with cooperatives. This section included 12
yes–no type questions asking whether teachers had participated in a range of activities with cooperatives. The fourth
section included questions to measure demographic information, including age, gender, level of education, and teaching
experience.
The teacher survey was administered on surveymonkey.com. Composite scores for teacher accuracy of knowledge and feelings about and interactions with cooperatives
were generated. The population for this survey included all
high school social studies and agriculture teachers in North
Dakota. In 2008, this population included 89 high school
agriculture teachers and an unknown number of social studies teachers. Too few teachers (N = 15) responded to the
survey to provide meaningful statistics from these data. Results from the survey represent 16% of all North Dakota
agricultural teachers.
Teachers submitted completed student pre- and posttests.
We graded the knowledge section of the tests, and then
recorded the number correct and responses to Sections 2, 3,
and 4 in a database. All hypotheses were tested using dependent sample t tests using SAS (version 9.2). An alpha level
of .05 was used as a critical value for statistical significance.
RESULTS
Approximately 65% of the respondents identified themselves
as young men. Approximately 70% of the students identified
themselves as juniors or seniors, the remainder as freshman
or sophomores.
The first research objective was to measure how high
school student knowledge and perceptions toward cooperative businesses align before and after participating in a curriculum about cooperative businesses. Changes in attitude
were based on three components: knowledge, feelings, and
awareness. Average student knowledge prior to completing
the curriculum was 38.9%. After participating in the curriculum, 89.4% of students increased in their knowledge.
The average increase in knowledge was 23% relative to their
knowledge score on the pretest. Increases in knowledge were
statistically significant. A decrease in knowledge about cooperatives was expressed in 8.4% of students on the posttest
as compared to the pretest. It is unclear whether this reflects
an actual decrease in understanding or in the level of effort
exercised by students in completing the survey.
The average student feelings toward cooperatives score
prior to completing the curriculum was 59 (SD = 0.131).
An increase in the feelings score was experienced by 56.4%
of students, with the average increase being 4.8 relative to
the pretest. Increases in the feelings score were statistically
significant for the entire sample. A decrease in the feelings
toward cooperatives score was expressed by 33% of students
on the posttest as compared with the pretest, with an average decrease of 12.7%, larger than the average increase in
the feelings score. Students with decreased feelings scores
had smaller than average (21.6%) increases in knowledge,
whereas students with increased feelings scores had larger
than average (24.3%) increases in knowledge.
Finally, 54.6% of students indicated high awareness about
interacting with cooperatives at the start of the curriculum.
This number increased for 38% of students, and decreased for
9.5% of students at the end of the curriculum. This indicates
that at the time students started the curriculum, more than
one third of students either were members of or had done
business with cooperatives and did not realize it, or had made
a deliberate effort to conduct business with cooperatives by
the time they completed the posttest. A smaller group came
to realize they either were not members of cooperative or had
not done business with them.
Together, these results indicate that the lessons statistically
increase high school student attitudes about cooperatives.
Knowledge of, feelings about, and awareness of interacting
with cooperatives statistically increased for most students
after participating in the curriculum.
Gender
The null hypothesis that changes in student attitudes about
cooperatives were unrelated to gender was tested. Average
knowledge was 38.4% for young men and 39.7% for young
men prior to participating in the curriculum. The curriculum
resulted in increases in knowledge for 92.2% of young men
(n = 115) and 87.1% of young men (n = 62) students. The average increase in knowledge for young men was 21.1% and
26.4% for young women. Increases for both genders were
statistically significant and statistically different from each
other. Hence, female students knew more about cooperatives
before participating in the curriculum, and learned more than
their male student counterparts during the curriculum. To the
extent knowledge about business management is a subject
dominated by young men, this result is contrary to the literature cited previously about young women in traditionally
male-dominated areas. A possible explanation for this result
may include differences in aptitude between young men and
young women in the sample. No data were gathered to test
this.
There were not statistically significant differences in
changes in feelings scores between genders (Table 1).
IMPACT OF CBM CURRICULUM
361
TABLE 1
Dependent Sample t Test on Attitude Change Toward Cooperatives, by Gender
Student attribute
Young women (n = 62)
Knowledge
Feeling
Awareness of interaction
Young men (n = 115)
Knowledge
Feeling
Awareness of interaction
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:21 11 January 2016
∗p
Start
End
Change
0.396
0.599
0.605
0.660
0.632
0.798
0.264
∗
0.033
∗
0.194
0.384
0.585
0.691
0.596
0.642
0.746
0.211
0.057
∗
0.053
∗
∗
t
p
11.31 (df = 61)
2.22 (df = 61)
6.81 (df = 61)