TEACHING-LEARNING ACTIVITIES IN HOME ECONOMICS LABORATORIES IN SELECTED SCHOOLS IN MARYLAND: A COMPARISON OF OBSERVATIONS WITH THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF AUTHORITIES

The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which students in home economics laboratories engaged in learning activities to develop their skills in resource management. The data were obtained to (1) compare the observed data with criterion data and (2) to develop some hypotheses about the relationships of the observed data with some educational factors.; The research design was an observational study in which students and occasions were facets and the universe of generalizability were the classes. Generalizability theory was applied to a two-facet nested analysis of variance design to determine both the reliability of the observational instrument and the proportional sizes of the variance contributed by each component of the design.; Observations were made in thirty-eight laboratories. The activities of five randomly selected students were recorded on three occasions. The laboratories included foods and nutrition, clothing and textiles and child development. Criterion data were obtained by mailed questionnaires to home economics authorities. Activities observed were managerial, manipulative, observational, information seeking and "other".; Differences between the criterion means and observed means in the practice of management skills found to be significant at the .05 level were: (1) for the thirty-eight laboratories the criterion mean was 25.5 percent; the observed mean was 6.03 percent, (2) the recommended mean for clothing and textiles was 24.7 percent; the observed mean was zero percent, (3) the recommended mean for foods and nutrition was 27.0 percent; the observed mean was 2.7 percent, (4) the recommended mean for child development was 24.2 percent; observed mean was 13.1 percent.; Correlations found to be positive between teacher attributes and student activities were: (1) the years of teaching experience and time devoted to manipulative and information seeking activities, (2) credits in management and time devoted to management activities, and (3) the highest degree earned and time devoted to observational activities.; It was observed that learning activities in laboratories were not those recommended. Therefore, it was recommended that this study be replicated, that research studies focus on the reasons for the differences between recommended and observed times and that model in-service programs be designed and tested which will show congruence between recommended and observed time in the teaching of resource management.