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Browsing by Subject "Family life education"

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    Effect of a family life education program on non-directed information behavior of first-time parents
    (2014-08) Gwinn, Derek Andrew
    bold>Objective: This dissertation investigated the effect of a family life education program on the subsequent information behaviors of first-time parents. Information behavior can occur both intentionally and incidentally, and through routine and non-routine sources. This study aimed to examine the hypothesis that participation in the educational intervention would increase the information behavior of participants, as indicated by reporting the use of a wider variety of information resource types. The study also examined the potential moderating effects on information behavior by education, income, parenting stress, child temperament and characteristics, and social support networks.Method: The sample for this experimental intervention study included 132 cohabiting or married couples who were expecting their firstborn children at the time of enrollment. Participants were randomly assigned to either the control or intervention group. Data for these analyses were collected around the children's first birthdays. Dependent variables were calculated from participants' self-reported use of different information resource types over the previous year. ANOVA was utilized to examine between-groups differences in total information sources, routine information sources and non-routine information sources. Potential moderating variables were measured utilizing the Parenting Stress Inventory, the Infant Characteristics Questionnaire, and the Social Support Network Inventory. Hierarchical regression served to identify potential moderation of the effect of the intervention on the dependent variables.Results: Participation in the educational intervention was found to increase total information behavior and non-routine information for both mothers and fathers, and to increase routine information behavior for fathers. Moderating effects of income, parenting stress, infant temperament and social support were not identified, but level of education was found to moderate the effect of the intervention on routine information source use by fathers. bold>Conclusions: Results indicate that the educational interventions can increase the variety of resource types used by participants seeking parenting- or pregnancy-related information. Additionally, findings suggests that fathers in particular may be motivated to seek out additional information sources, perhaps from the normalizing experience of talking with others about being a parent and adjusting to children.
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    Pragmatic family life education: moving beyond the expert-based, content-driven model of serving families
    (2014-08) Hardman, Alisha Marie
    The field of family life education (FLE) is shifting from an expert-based, content-driven model of education that is rooted in a positivistic epistemology of practice to a more collaborative, strength-based model that integrates scientific knowledge from family sciences with the values and experiences of families in communities. This study employs John Dewey's version of pragmatism as the guiding epistemology of practice for this emerging approach to FLE. A pragmatic approach to FLE is proposed through a summary and synthesis of concepts derived from a variety of perspectives, disciplines and fields that comprise the overall conceptual framework, which is comprised of two parts. The first is the philosophical framework, which draws from three principal perspectives: (a) family science, (b) critical science, and (c) human ecology. The second is the practical framework, which extends Bronfenbrenner's (2001/2009) bioecological model of human development to inform the development of interventions aimed as families; integrates concepts from disciplines and fields such as: the attunement perspective, helping relationships, home economics, and positive psychology in order to inform strategies and approaches for outreach and engagement; and finally reviews principles central to the philosophy of education.The study employs a convergent, multi-level intervention mixed methods design and is based on the evaluation of an existing demonstration project entitled Co-Parent Court. The existing Co-Parent Court evaluation design utilized a quasi-experimental, randomized control group with a pre, post and follow-up survey. Co-Parent Court is used as a critical case to explore and examine the pragmatic model of FLE articulated in this study. Findings indicate that intervention parents were more likely to be doing well on several substantively significant dimensions of family well-being than those in the control group. Lessons learned regarding what worked and what did not work in the particular case of the Co-Parent Court project are discussed in order to ground the findings in the immediate programmatic context. Additionally, eight promising principles of a pragmatic approach to FLE were developed based on a triangulation of practitioner wisdom (stakeholder interviews) and social science theory (conceptual framework) in order to contribute knowledge to the field of FLE generally.