Implementing and assessing a bilingual educational program for Hispanic Nursery workers in Ohio
Loading...
Date
2007-04-02T13:33:16Z
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The Hispanic workforce is a key component of the U.S. nursery industry and their educational needs have not been addressed. Maintaining a stable workforce is one of the major issues of the Ohio nursery industry. The objective of this project was to measure the impact of a bilingual educational program to Hispanic nursery employees containing instruction in horticulture (H) and life skills (LS), as to which the two type of trainings had greater impact. To achieve this objective, during summers 2005 and 2006, an on-site bilingual educational program for Hispanic employees was implemented in seven Ohio nurseries. Two tests the Rosenberg Self Esteem (RSS) and the Index of Family Relationship (IFR) were conducted before and after the trainings. An evaluation of the courses was also included. All the participants received the H trainings (basic anatomy and plant development, pruning and nutrition in woody plants); but only half of the participants received the training in LS contents (you and your family's needs in the U.S., social support in your community, and communications). Data was analyzed using SPSS (Ò2006 SPSS Inc. Chicago, Illinois).
The analysis of the IFR and RSS scores indicated no detectable differences in workers behaviors compare results from before and after the program.
Nevertheless, the course evaluations completed by the workers after the program provided information regarding impact. Other literature resources and findings of this study indicate, that qualitative evaluation of educational program for Hispanics rather than traditional quantitative surveys are more appropriate for program evaluations.
Description
Keywords
hispanic workforce, nursery industry