An Investigation of Seventh Grade Students’ Attitudes Towards Animals in a Middle School Science Classroom in Rural Alabama by Jackson Moss A dissertation proposal submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Auburn University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Auburn, Alabama May 4, 2019 Keywords: attitudes toward animals, conservation, education Copyright 2019 by Jackson Moss Approved by Christine Guy Schnittka, Chair, Associate Professor, Department of Education Melody Russell, Professor, Department of Education Debbie Folkerts, Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences Chih-Hsuan Wang, Associate Professor, Department of Education Research Abstract This dissertation examines the different types of attitudes toward animals held by 7th grade students in one middle school in the rural southeastern part United States. This study was conducted using seven-point Likert scale surveys over the course of 5 weeks. Each survey contained twenty items consisting of a wide range of animals across four phyla. These surveys showed that students preferred smaller, local, colorful, vertebrates to other animals. The objective of the study was to determine what types of attitudes students exhibited towards animals presented in the surveys and what influenced these attitudes. The results show that students’ attitudes mostly result from knowledge and exposure to a certain species, with aesthetics and perceived threat of the animals used to inform their attitudes in the absence of content knowledge or exposure to the animals. This project also examined students’ attitudes and knowledge toward bats and questioned if the bat curriculum would influence these attitudes and science content knowledge. The survey toward bats used pre and post testing items and found that educational intervention did improve attitudes (t(48) = -6.9, p <.001) and knowledge X2 (1, N = 49) = 19.2, p < .001 toward bats by a statistically significant amount. Themes discovered that strongly impacted student attitudes toward animals were knowledge, aesthetics, exposure, and taxonomic relation of the animal to other animals. ii Acknowledgments I thank my advisor, Dr. Christine Schnittka. Without her willingness to accept a biology student looking to learn more about education, and her knowledge, experience, kindness, and infinite patience, I would not have been able completed this difficult task. She deserves a dissertation’s worth of praise for the hard work she does for all of her students. I thank the committee members who have agreed to be a part of the dissertation process, Dr. Debbie Folkerts, Dr. Melody Russell, and Dr. Chih-Hsuan Wang. Each of them has given advice and counseling related to their fields and to this dissertation. They have helped me see the progress I have been making. I thank Mrs. River and her 7th grade life science classes for allowing me to learn about how they feel about animals and teaching them to enjoy bats. The memories I have of teaching these students will be one I cherish my entire life. Last, I thank my family. I would like to thank my parents Dr. Bill Moss and Debbie Moss. They helped me stay positive and on task while working through this. I also thank my kind and patient wife Danielle for by patient and caring during these stressful times. You have been there motivating me to finish this task. iii Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………ii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iii List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... x List of Figures .................................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER I: THE PROBLEM .......................................................................................... 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 Problems with Attitudes Toward Animals .................................................................................. 1 Geographic Location Problems ............................................................................................... 2 Symbolic Value Problems ....................................................................................................... 3 Attitudes................................................................................................................................... 4 Attitudes Toward Animals .......................................................................................................... 6 Definitions of Animal Values ..................................................................................................... 6 Attitudes in Teaching About Animals ..................................................................................... 8 Problems in Education About Animals ................................................................................... 8 Significance of the Study .......................................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................... 11 iv The Southeastern United States................................................................................................. 11 The Ecology of the Southeastern United States .................................................................... 11 Economy and Education in Rural Schools ............................................................................ 13 Attitudes and Values Toward Animals ..................................................................................... 16 Attitudes and Definitions ....................................................................................................... 16 Perceived and Actual Values ................................................................................................. 18 Interactions of Values and Attitudes ..................................................................................... 19 Empathy Toward Animals ..................................................................................................... 26 Animals Promote Interest in Science Learning ..................................................................... 27 Summary of Attitudes and Values Regarding Animals ............................................................ 29 Attitudes Toward Bats ............................................................................................................... 29 Positive Attributes of Bats ..................................................................................................... 30 Negative Values Toward Bats ............................................................................................... 31 Bat Education ........................................................................................................................ 31 Educational Interventions for Animal Attitudes ....................................................................... 32 Surveys .................................................................................................................................. 33 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY .................................................................................. 35 Purpose ...................................................................................................................................... 35 v Data Collection .......................................................................................................................... 35 Mixed Method Approach....................................................................................................... 37 Animal Attitudes Surveys ...................................................................................................... 38 Study Site and Participants .................................................................................................... 39 The Curriculum ......................................................................................................................... 40 Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................................. 42 Constructivism ....................................................................................................................... 42 Table 1 ................................................................................................................................... 45 Timeline for Research ........................................................................................................... 50 Figure 1 ................................................................................................................................. 50 Administering the Animal Attitudes Survey to Youth .......................................................... 51 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................................ 51 Assessing Attitudes Toward Bats .......................................................................................... 52 Researcher Stance and Bias....................................................................................................... 53 CHAPTER IV: RESULTS