During the last few decades the interest and demand for both healthy food and different beverages has increased the interest for healthy food and it is expected to continue increasing in the future. A strong reason for this is the desire among more and more people to live healthy and long lives. Because of this, the recent industry of functional foods has become increasingly popular as marketers aim to sell food products that can benefit a consumer’s health beyond a healthy or organic food products ability. “A functional food is, or appears similar to, a conventional food. It is part of a standard diet and is consumed on a regular basis, in normal quantities. It has proven health benefits…beyond its basic nutritional functions.” (Doyon and Labrecque 2008 pp.1147) In order for marketers to make the right marketing actions, a better understanding of consumer behaviour and attitudes towards functional food is needed. Without this information marketers will not be able to create effective marketing campaigns for functional food products. Consumer attitudes towards functional foods were looked at in four different factors/dimensions, reward, necessity, confidence and safety, and then each factors impact on consumer willingness to consume was measured.Purpose - The purpose of the study was to investigate consumer’s attitudes on functional foods and their willingness to consume functional foods.Method/Approach - A questionnaire was developed from a previous study (Lähteenmäki and Urala 2007) on consumer attitudes and their willingness to consume functional foods, using a combination of convenience sampling and judgment sampling.Findings- The data confirmed the results from previous studies that consumer attitudes play a role in impacting consumer willingness to consume functional foods, but also that the results cannot be generalized on all functional food groups or types.Conclusions – Each functional food category should be approached in a different way, from a marketing or advertising point of view and when marketing each functional food product. Different aspects e.g. Reward, necessity, confidence and safety should be highlighted for each individual food category in the packaging or advertisement to give the marketing strategy an advantage to increase consumer willingness to use that product. The study was found to collaborate with the previous studies conducted by Lähteenmäki and Urala (2007).Key Words – Attitudes, Consumer attitudes, Functional foods, Consumer behaviour

This study investigated the factors that influence community college students' attitudes toward technology, particularly in teaching and learning experiences. Studies on post-secondary students' attitudes reported in the literature are limited. Factors cited previously as having an effect on attitudes towards technology and toward computers included: gender; age; presence of a computer in the home; completion of a formal technology course; and comfort with technology. The subjects in this study were 372 students in freshman level credit English classes in the five colleges of the North Harris Montgomery Community College District located in the greater metropolitan Houston area. Previous research instruments and studies to measure students' attitudes toward technology were reviewed. A modified version of the Secondary Students Attitudes' Toward Technology (SSATT) was developed for this study because of the content, reliability, and applicability to the postsecondary population. The instrument was administered in the spring of 2005. The fact that 95.4% of the participants reported having a computer at home and that 70.2% reported having had a formal technology class provided insight into the integration of technology in the lives of this community college sample. A correlation matrix of all variables and analysis of variance were performed. Factor analyses were performed to identify subcomponents of the instrument. Eight factors were identified: (1) need for technology competence, (2) technology benefits, (3) negative aspects of technology, (4) technology and the workplace, (5) impact of increased use of technology, (6) video games, (7) technology and job creation, and (8) technology and safety. A conclusion of the study was that neither age nor gender had a significant effect on the post-secondary students' attitudes toward technology, which differs from the findings in some of the previous studies. Females reported being as comfortable, if not more so, with technology in teaching and learning experiences as the males in the study. Exposure to technology, completion of a formal technology class, and the use of computers appeared to positively affect community college students' attitudes toward technology.

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As obesity and related diseases become increasingly prevalent, there is a great need for programs for at-risk female adolescents that will encourage physical activity and other healthy behaviors. Enjoyment is one factor that has been associated with exercise participation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a physical activity program on at-risk female adolescents' enjoyment of physical activity. Participants (n= 50) from a residential treatment facility participated in a non-competitive, non-threatening physical activity program for ten weeks. Fifteen of the participants comprised a control group and did not participate in the structured program. Participants completed the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES) at the beginning and end of the program. In addition, their exercise heart rates were obtained at each session. A repeated-measures ANOVA was used to analyze the PACES scores. Results indicated a significant group by time interaction between the three cottages (p= .002). Further analysis revealed PACES scores increased for one treatment cottage, but decreased for the other treatment cottage and the control group. The mean percent of time participants spent in their target heart rate zone (>140 bpm) was 53.5%. / School of Physical Education, Sport, and Exercise Science

Access to abstract permanently restricted to Ball State community only. / Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only. / School of Physical Education, Sport, and Exercise Science

This study examined sex differences in attitudes and attributions of responsibility in acquaintance rape situations. The existing literature in this area has focused solely on examining explicit attitudes, or those attitudes that are within an individual's conscious awareness. No attention, however, has been focused on the implicit attitudes that individuals have in acquaintance rape situations. Implicit attitudes are those that operate outside of an individual's awareness and reflect his or her underlying attitudes and beliefs about an object. In an effort to examine implicit attitudes in acquaintance rape situations, a variation of Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz's (1998) Implicit Associations Test was utilized. Additionally, Burt's (1980) Rape Myth Acceptance Scale, the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale and an Attribution of Responsibility measure were administered. It was hypothesized that responses to these measures would predict participants' sex. A stepwise discriminant function analysis was conducted. Age and attributions of responsibility were identified as the factors that best predicted sex. Significant relationships were identified between Rape Myth Acceptance and Attributions of Responsibility. Those participants who adhered to rape myths were more likely to attribute responsibility for the acquaintance rape to the survivor than were those who did not adhere to rape myths. Significant sex differences were also identified on the Attribution of Responsibility measure, with men being more likely than women to attribute responsibility for acquaintance rape to the survivor. Limitations to generalizability of these results and implications for future research and clinical practice are discussed. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

The objective of this study was to support the claim that drama education is no "mere frill" in the curriculum but is, in fact, important to the formation of attitudes and values in young people. The study moved in two directions. The literature was explored to establish a position on what is intended by the terms "attitude" and "drama education" and to demonstrate a connection between these two terms. Following a review of the literature which demonstrated that there was reason to believe that children's attitudes to ageing and to old people are less than ideal, the two strategies of a practical investigation were begun. In examining the attitudes of Grade 5 children to the elderly and to the ageing, quantitative and qualitative investigations were undertaken. The quantitative investigation employed the Children's Attitude Towards the Elderly (CATE) (Jantz, Seefeldt, Serock, and Galper, 1976) instrument to examine attitudes in one control and two experimental groups. The qualitative investigation consisted of the analyses of: (a) interviews with the teacher, and children of both experimental groups during and after the three units of drama education, (b) pre- and post-drawings by children from these groups, (c) the reflections written in their journals by children of the experimental groups after the drama education units, and (d) field notes taken during participant/observation in the drama classroom. The experimental groups were taught drama employing two different methods. Group A pursued the topic "Young People/Old People" in the drama classroom in child-directed drama, while Group B explored the same topic in teacher-directed drama. The results of both strategies were compared and contrasted under the rubrics of the theoretical positions on "attitudes" and on "drama education" adopted for the study. The research results converged to support the claim that, for the children of both experimental groups, doing drama had asssisted them as they rebuilt their attitudes to old people and to ageing. No such improvement had occurred for the Control Group. Positive attitude change consisted in (a) greater knowledge of old people and ageing, (b) a diminution in the fear of ageing and old people, (c) positive feelings toward the elderly, and (d) identification with the interests, feelings, goals, and means of elderly people. In addition, the qualitative study revealed that some children recognized that drama caused them to re-value the people in their own lives. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

Typescript, etc. / Digitized by Kansas State University Libraries

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This dissertation examined the relationship between attitude and motivation with English language achievement among Mexican university students across three undergraduate academic programs. This study also aimed at enhancing theoretical knowledge about students' motivation and attitudes towards learning English as a second language through the use of quantitative (a survey and an adapted version of the AMTB) as well as qualitative research instruments and techniques (interviews, class observations, and a questionnaire). The major results in this dissertation are: 1) Student participants display positive motivation and attitudes toward learning English as a second language in general, but these motivation and attitudes towards the English classes they receive in the University of Aztlán (fictitious name for the research site of this dissertation) are lower. 2) These attitudes and motivations can be affected by the way in which the English language program is structured. 3) Students' interest in foreign languages, motivational intensity to learn English and teacher evaluation can impact students' scores in their English exams when they are first assessed, but that scores improve once students understand the assessment process, discover what information is evaluated in the exams, and focus on the areas to be assessed. 4) Students with more previous English contact before enrolling the university, obtain higher scores than students with limited previous contact with the language. 5) Interviews and class observations proved to be the most effective research techniques to identify the actual activities that are performed in the research site, which suggests that continuous and accurate English program evaluation is necessary in Mexican universities for the benefit of students, teachers and society in general.