An Evaluation of Students’ Attitudes Developed through Homemaking Instruction in the Secondary Schools of Oklahoma

Abstract

Homemaking instruction, to be effective, must be a contribution to the experiences of the student; it should supplement rather than repeat the usual life experiences. Yet a ques tion has often arisen as to the effectiveness of education for homemaking in the public school program. This may be due in part to the fact that many of the objectives of home making education may be partly achieved through actual life experiences and through the maturation of the individual. In con structing the home economics curriculum there is a definite need for determining what experiences the school should afford in the education of youth for home and family life, which are not provided through usual life experiences, as well as for deciding the de gree of emphasis to be placed on learnings acquired with expense to the school. In education for homemaking and family life, much stress is placed upon the develop ment of right attitudes toward the home and the family. Objectives and desired out comes in courses are frequently stated in terms of desirable attitudes to be developed. The measurement of pupils' growth, or de velopment toward desired goals, is the major criterion for the evaluation of the effective ness of instruction, yet there are few meas ures by which teachers, and city and state administrators, may judge the quality of a home economics program in terms of these concomitant outcomes of learning. At the time this study was undertaken a state-wide program for the evaluation of the results and services of home economics in struction in the secondary schools was being carried on in Oklahoma. This study, and a similar study,2 designed to measure skills and information, were made possible through the cooperation of the State Department of Education, and the Division of Vocational Home Economics and were incorporated as a part of the evaluation program. It was the purpose of the present study (i) to construct objective scales to be used to measure the outcomes of home economics instruction, in terms of attitudes, for the two years of high school above the eighth grade; (2) to ad minister the scales to a representative sampling of high school pupils in Oklahoma; and (3) to discover what attitudes students in home economics develop through home economics instruction in secondary schools of Oklahoma that they do not develop through usual life experiences. This last purpose was realized by administering the tests to an ade quate sampling of students having completed two years of home economics instruction above the eighth grade, and comparing the results with those of a comparable group, not having had such instruction.