Human Development Competencies in Preservice Home Economics Teacher Education

Abstract

The influence of human development content in the preservice education of home economics teachers can be viewed from three perspectives: (1) as subject matter to be taught; (2) as those concepts of development which teachers need to know in order to plan, teach, and evaluate educational experiences for their students; and (3) as a means by which students can gain a better understanding of their own behavior and attitudes and the behavior and at titudes of others. From these perspectives, using guidelines developed by the researcher, a list of 105 competencies in human development was developed. The initial 105 competencies were submitted to human development specialists who were requested to scale each competency as related to its importance in the education of prospective home economics teachers. The list was then reduced, using response means and spread of distribution, to 40 competencies. The final list of 40 competencies was then submitted to home economics teacher educators who were requested to rank the importance of each competency in the preservice education of home economics teachers on a scale 1 = important, 7 = unimportant. The mean responses by human development specialists to the 40 competencies ranged from 1.213 to 2.794. The range of mean response by home economics teacher educators was 1.375 to 2.500; t‐test results showed a significant difference of assigned mean values for nine of the competencies. The pattern of responses by human development specialists indicated greater importance being placed upon competencies related to individual development than those related to family development while home economics teacher educators reversed this pattern.