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The development, implementation, and evaluation of a Strategic Prejudice Reduction Framework and its effect on dogmatism levels of college students

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Date Issued:
1998
Summary:
Dogmatism is an uncritical, rigid way of thinking that correlates strongly with prejudice. Prejudice is an attitude, usually unfavorable, toward individuals or groups, arrived at through an uncritical thought process and a disregard of the facts. Dogmatism, because of its connection with prejudice, vitiates students' chances for learning. Dogmatism in teachers creates an inequitable distribution of education to the extent that marginalized minority students are shortchanged educational opportunities. The nature of dogmatism and its impact on education is covered in the literature. Moreover, pedagogical and andragogical strategies which utilize the cognitive and affective domains to heighten critical thinking ability and empathy for others are also addressed in the literature. A Strategic Prejudice-Reduction Framework, the Dogmatism Diminution Model (DDM), was developed, implemented, and evaluated in a university setting. The DDM is not designed to be a discrete course; rather it is meant to be infused within a multicultural education class. The key features of the DDM are its domains, the Cognitive, Reflective, Emotive, and Active through which the course content is relayed. The Cognitive and Emotive domains of the DDM correspond to the cognitive and affective literature, the Reflective domain corresponds to the literature on critical thinking, but the Active domain of the DDM is not associated with the behavioral domain of the literature. Instead it is related to the research on service learning. Three hypotheses were tested. Two dealt with the DDM and the third with a demographic correlate of dogmatism. In order to determine the effectiveness of the DDM, Milton Rokeach's (1960) Dogmatism Scale was administered in a pretest/posttest design. The data were submitted to an ANCOVA and subsequently to a post hoc Scheffe test to determine between which pairs of groups differences in means occurred. ANCOVA was used to compensate for the effect that the pretest might have on the results of the posttest. The comparison of means among the four groups identified a significant reduction in the level of dogmatism at the alpha = .05 level between the DDM group and the Control group as well as one of the other two experimental groups. However, in a paired-score comparison of the treatment group itself, no significance was found with the sample of 31 subjects. This could be attributed to a lack of power in the sample size. Finally, a Pearson Product Moment Correlation of .154 was significant at the 95% confidence level between the variables of dogmatism and degree of religiosity.
Title: The development, implementation, and evaluation of a Strategic Prejudice Reduction Framework and its effect on dogmatism levels of college students.
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Name(s): Allgood, Ilene
Florida Atlantic University, Degree grantor
Diaz, Carlos F., Thesis advisor
Pisapia, John, Thesis advisor
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Issuance: monographic
Date Issued: 1998
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Boca Raton, Fla.
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 114 p.
Language(s): English
Summary: Dogmatism is an uncritical, rigid way of thinking that correlates strongly with prejudice. Prejudice is an attitude, usually unfavorable, toward individuals or groups, arrived at through an uncritical thought process and a disregard of the facts. Dogmatism, because of its connection with prejudice, vitiates students' chances for learning. Dogmatism in teachers creates an inequitable distribution of education to the extent that marginalized minority students are shortchanged educational opportunities. The nature of dogmatism and its impact on education is covered in the literature. Moreover, pedagogical and andragogical strategies which utilize the cognitive and affective domains to heighten critical thinking ability and empathy for others are also addressed in the literature. A Strategic Prejudice-Reduction Framework, the Dogmatism Diminution Model (DDM), was developed, implemented, and evaluated in a university setting. The DDM is not designed to be a discrete course; rather it is meant to be infused within a multicultural education class. The key features of the DDM are its domains, the Cognitive, Reflective, Emotive, and Active through which the course content is relayed. The Cognitive and Emotive domains of the DDM correspond to the cognitive and affective literature, the Reflective domain corresponds to the literature on critical thinking, but the Active domain of the DDM is not associated with the behavioral domain of the literature. Instead it is related to the research on service learning. Three hypotheses were tested. Two dealt with the DDM and the third with a demographic correlate of dogmatism. In order to determine the effectiveness of the DDM, Milton Rokeach's (1960) Dogmatism Scale was administered in a pretest/posttest design. The data were submitted to an ANCOVA and subsequently to a post hoc Scheffe test to determine between which pairs of groups differences in means occurred. ANCOVA was used to compensate for the effect that the pretest might have on the results of the posttest. The comparison of means among the four groups identified a significant reduction in the level of dogmatism at the alpha = .05 level between the DDM group and the Control group as well as one of the other two experimental groups. However, in a paired-score comparison of the treatment group itself, no significance was found with the sample of 31 subjects. This could be attributed to a lack of power in the sample size. Finally, a Pearson Product Moment Correlation of .154 was significant at the 95% confidence level between the variables of dogmatism and degree of religiosity.
Identifier: 9780599117143 (isbn), 12583 (digitool), FADT12583 (IID), fau:9469 (fedora)
Note(s): College of Education
Thesis (Ed.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1998.
Subject(s): Dogmatism
College students--Attitudes
Multicultural education
Prejudices
Teacher-student relationships
Held by: Florida Atlantic University Libraries
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12583
Sublocation: Digital Library
Use and Reproduction: Copyright © is held by the author with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.