Agricultural Education relies heavily on national and state professional associations to serve School Based Agricultural Education (SBAE) teachers. Because there is not 100% membership in these organizations across the country, it is vital to learn what is holding teachers back from joining and identify the needs of current members to encourage…

The Everyday Discrimination Scale is the most commonly used instrument to assess discrimination. The survey asks respondents about a range of negative interpersonal experiences and then asks them to provide a single main reason for all these experiences. Theories of intersectionality cast doubt on the idea that marginalized individuals generally…

Resource degradation is a chief concern related to increased recreational of U.S. public lands. The Seven Leave No Trace (LNT) Principles are used to educate visitors how to reduce recreational impacts. This study sought to understand Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GRSM) hikers' behavioral intent toward LNT practices. A quantitative…

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) seeks to conduct relevant, sustainable research that is tailored to the needs of the communities with which it is engaged through equitable collaboration between community representatives and professional researchers. Like other participatory approaches to research and planning, CBPR has been…

Few empirical studies exist to guide researchers in determining the number of focus groups necessary for a research study. The analyses described here provide foundational evidence to help researchers in this regard. We conducted a thematic analysis of 40 focus groups on health-seeking behaviors of African American men in Durham, North Carolina.…

We present descriptive findings from a North Carolina study of 30 limited-resource older homeowners who want to age in place, and we relate those findings to opportunities for outreach education. We grouped the findings from extensive participant interviews into five key areas. For two of those areas--health conditions and financial…

The ability to evaluate and accurately articulate the outcomes associated with leadership development programs is critical to their continued financial and administrative support. With calls for outcome-based accountability, the need for rigorous evaluation is particularly relevant for those programs administered through the Cooperative Extension…

Advanced Placement (AP) outcomes for Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) students have continued an upward trend for over 18 years, out-performing the state and the nation in all measures. In 2013-14 there were 13,757 exams taken by 6,955 WCPSS test-takers with almost 76% of the exams resulting in scores at or above 3, outperforming Guilford…

Adolescent pregnancy continues to be a major concern for policy-makers, programme developers, helping professionals and society generally in the USA, especially in light of the US federal government's legislative emphasis on abstinence-only sex education until recently. Studies have found that abstinence-only programmes do not succeed in…

The increasing enrollment of children with disabilities and developmental delays in inclusive settings requires reconsiderations of the scope and depth of early childhood professional development. In this study, a phenomenological research design was used to gain the perspectives of 13 parents and child care providers about their participation in…

This mixed-methods study investigates the perspectives of twice-exceptional students on learning strategies that have been recommended for them in the literature. Have the strategies recommended in the literature been implemented? Do students perceive the strategies to be beneficial in helping them learn? Participants represented a broad range of…

Background: Understanding the gaps in knowledge about human papilloma virus (HPV) infection, transmission, and health consequences and factors associated with the knowledge gap is an essential first step for the development of interventions to improve adherence to follow-up among women with abnormal Pap smears. Purpose: To examine the relationship…

The 2013-2014 North Carolina Pre-Kindergarten (NC Pre-K) Evaluation study was designed to examine the longitudinal outcomes through kindergarten for children who attended the Pre-K program, along with comparisons to previous cohorts of program attendees. A sample of 561 children was included in the study, with data gathered at the beginning and…

Recent years have seen the convergence of two major policy streams in U.S. K-12 education: standards/accountability and teacher quality reforms. Work in these areas has led to the creation of multiple measures of teacher quality, including measures of their instructional alignment to standards/assessments, observational and student survey measures…

Understanding effective and appropriate techniques for assessing student learning has never been as critical and political as is it is today. Accurate assessment methodologies employed in public schools are vital to the interpretation of student achievement data through which school effectiveness is being measured. Although there is a need,…