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In a qualitative analysis, based upon three cases of mid-career1 secondary education teachers, their strategies, philosophies, modalities, and student expectations were analyzed in an effort to understand the extent to which self-directed learning (SDL) can impact the success of studentsâ learning. These practical implications of the study by experienced teachers supported and also challenged theoretical concepts of primarily Piaget, Knowles, and Vygotsky, but also examined those of Bloom and Wlodkowski. Specifically, results demonstrated that the incorporation of some adult learning methodologies into secondary education environments has contributed significantly to the effectiveness of these teachers. Perhaps this knowledge can guide future research into how to best identify and further develop secondary education teachersâ pedagogies to utilize SDL techniques in the 21st century classroom.

Government programs that restrict production and increase prices to particular groups of producers have a long history in the United States. The purpose of this research is to analyze the implications of such a program for peanuts in three independent essays. The first essay focuses on the development of a model of the effects of cross-county transfers on peanut quota after the 1996 farm bill. Using a spatial linear regression model, the hypothesis that the lifting of transfer restrictions tends to equilibrate lease rates across counties is tested. The results indicate that, after the 1996 bill, peanut quota moved out of counties that under produce their quota to overproducing counties, indirectly indicating a tendency for lease rates to equalize. The second essay studies the most recent changes to the peanut program, enacted by the U.S. Congress in 2002, and reviews important events that led to these changes. Several models are developed that analyze the costs and benefits of the revised program in domestic and foreign markets. It is concluded that farmers in most peanut producing states will incur losses due to the peanut program changes, with the exception of Texas and Florida. The impact of the transformation on the world price of edible peanuts is analyzed and shown to be theoretically ambiguous-- the world price could either increase or decrease depending on demand and supply elasticities. The essay explores numerically the influence of the relevant elasticities. The third essay reviews the U.S. federal crop insurance program and investigates its interaction with the peanut program. A model of a risk neutral profit maximizing farmer is developed and comparative static results are derived. The results show that in equilibrium peanut quota lease rates do not represent the full difference between the support price and world price and are affected by the cost of crop insurance.

Rural landscapes in the United States have changed substantially in recent years due to increased urbanization, and an ever-increasing demand for consumptive and nonconsumptive uses of natural resources. At the same time, we are facing new challenges regarding the socio-economic well-being of people and the ecological significance of resources in the landscape. Previous research in natural resources economics and management has failed to recognize the role of natural resources amenities in fostering economic growth, human values, and public welfare. Applying various non-market valuation techniques to real world observations, the findings from the essays in this dissertation add to the valuation aspects of natural resources economics literature, and reveal some policy implications for local, state, and federal governments. The first essay investigates the potential of promoting natural resource amenities as a rural economic growth engine. The second investigates how the variation, spatial distribution, and configuration of landuse features are valued in urban neighborhoods. The third essay estimates the demand for public lands in urban areas and analyzes the anticipated economic welfare gain of policies supplying such public lands. The fourth essay extends the existing model of the life expectancy production function to evaluate the role of environmental amenities in promoting public health. The final essay assesses the effects of the ongoing landuse changes and urban sprawl on the demand for wildlife hunting and related nature-based recreation in rural America. Since the recent approaches of conservation and development emphasize passive employment of natural resources for sustainable development; the essays in this iv dissertation present some insights into recognizing the value of natural resources in economic growth, human values, public health, and recreational prospects in the United States. In addition to providing policy implications, essays in this dissertation extend or improve some of the existing models and methodological frameworks of non-market valuation.

This thesis deals with two related topics under the theme of ―Analyzing Poverty in the Southern United States‖. The first part explores the role of government healthcare and education expenditure for poverty reduction, focusing particularly on how these relationships change over space and time in the Southern United States. It is found that healthcare expenditure is a significant contributor to poverty alleviation in both 1990 and 2000. The healthcare expenditure has a relatively high poverty-reducing effect in the Texas cluster and in the west part of the Mississippi Delta cluster in both years, while the poverty-reducing effect of healthcare expenditures disappears in 2000 in the Central Appalachia cluster. The effect of government expenditures on education decreased over time in the west part of the Mississippi Delta cluster but the education expenditure began to have a poverty-reducing effect in the Central Appalachia cluster in 2000. The second part focuses on disentangling the relationship between urban sprawl and poverty in the Southern United States. Results show that an increase in urban sprawl, as measured by wildland-urban interface (WUI), is associated with an increase in the urban poverty rate. The positive interrelationship between urban poverty and area of sprawl in metro counties supports the theoretical framework that urban poverty is both cause and effect of urban sprawl. With no other direct or indirect association between the poverty rate and urban sprawl, the positive interrelationship is explained by the movement of business centers to the suburban areas by sprawl development and immobility of the poor and the middle and upper class households‘ preference for the neighborhoods with lower poverty rates.

Precision farming entails production decisions that are made by obtaining data about soil and field traits. Information about yield and soil characteristics at different locations is collected and management strategies consistent with this information are designed. Information providers play a major role in helping farmers incorporate precision farming information into their decision-making processes. The main goal of this research is to add to the understanding of preferences of information sources in the context of precision farming. Data from cotton farmers in 11 Southeastern states were used to achieve this goal. Results from this study can be utilized by precision farming information providers to more effectively target their clientele. This thesis examines two related research topics. The first essay focuses on the use of Extension as a source of precision farming information and the factors that determine preferences for this information source. The second essay examines farm business attributes, farmer characteristics and regional factors affecting cotton farmers‘ use of various precision farming information sources. Farmers‘ preferences for precision farming education programming from Extension were described and analyzed using a basic statistical analysis. Results indicate that farmers tend to use various information sources simultaneously with Extension to make decisions about precision farming technology. An independent samples t-test showed that the means for age, education, income, farm size, and land tenure were statically significantly different between Extension users and non-users when other factors that may influence the use of precision farming information sources were not controlled. A multivariate probit model was used in the second essay to determine the farm business, farmer, and regional characteristics affecting the use of different precision farming information sources. The multivariate approach accounts for correlation among the different information sources. Results suggest that the decision to use a precision farming information source may be correlated with the decision to use other information sources. When controlling for other factors that may influence the use of precision farming information sources age, education, farm size, and income were found to significantly affect the decision to use information sources.

Online networking and virtual communities of practice have proven to be successful in providing teachers with feelings of professionalism and with improving teacher performance. For a virtual community of practice to be successful, members must be able to use certain computer and Internet technologies and they must be willing to both share information and to use the resource as source of information. This study builds on the body of knowledge in this area by specifically assessing the attitudes of nutrition education paraprofessionals towards the adoption and use of an online networking and virtual community of practice resource. The participants for this study were nutrition education paraprofessionals currently working with The University of Tennessee Extension as Program Assistants with the Tennessee Nutrition Consumer Education Program (TNCEP). The study had three objectives: (a) to assess the participants’ comfort level with various computer and Internet technologies, (b) to assess the participants’ attitudes towards motivations and barriers for sharing information, and (c) to assess the participants’ attitudes towards potential uses of a virtual community of practice and how the use of such a resource might affect efficiency and effectiveness of nutrition education program programming. An online survey instrument was used to collect data. Analysis of the results indicated that the study participants were comfortable using the computer and Internet technologies needed to participate in a virtual community of practice. Data also reflected a positive attitude towards both sharing information through a virtual community of practice and towards using the resource as a source of information.

Few decisions are more important to feeder cattle producers than how to market their product. This study uses the hedonic pricing model to show which method of marketing results in higher prices (traditional auctions or video board sales) and which characteristics of cattle, conditions of sale, and market conditions result in price premiums and discounts. The two equations used were estimated by ordinary least squares in the SAS Reg procedure with 3131 observations over the 1996-2007 period. Model I (47 independent variables) was developed to estimate implicit values of various animal attributes, conditions of sale, and market conditions on the Tennessee Livestock Producers (TLP) video board sale. The dependent variable was sale price for each lot. Model II (36 independent variables) specified the ratio of TLP sale price to Tennessee auction market average price as a function of various animal attributes and conditions of sale. Lot characteristics that had significant positive implicit prices included: steers, larger lots, medium and large frame number 1 muscling, existence of a health program, animals penned the night before weighing, higher live cattle futures prices, and the fall season. Lot characteristics that had significant negative implicit prices included: mixed gender, fleshiness, higher weights, larger weight range, Charolais cross, longer distance to feedlot area, higher corn prices, and the spring season. TLP sale price exceeded Tennessee auction average price for similar cattle by 9 percent on average over the 12 years. The amount by which TLP price exceeded auction price was significantly positively affected by number of head in the lot, indication that animals were PVP certified, longer distance from farm to weigh point, allowance of pencil shrink, and allowing buyers to choose a load from a larger group of animals. The price difference was significantly negatively affected by the fact that the lot was of mixed gender, weight range for the lot was wide, the lot contained a larger percentage of animals that were not black or black baldy, animals showed substantial “ear”, animals had been fed supplement or were “home raised”, and location of animals was farther from typical feedlot areas.

Under the theme of ¨DRezoning Decisions Associated with Housing Price, Land Use Plan, and Urban Sprawl: Empirical Estimations¡¬, this thesis consists of two research with two related topics. The first part analyzes the dynamics of zoning structure and accommodates the neighborhood spillover effects associated with the real estate market, focusing particularly neighborhood spillover effects between rezoning of vacant parcels and housing price. It is found that the price of a house is positively influenced by the prices of other houses in its neighborhood but the rezoning status of a vacant parcel in a neighboring location plays an insignificant role in explaining the price of a house. The contrasting results of neighborhood spillover effects between rezoning and housing price clarify the direction of association between rezoning and housing price. The second part examines whether the manipulation of land use plan influences spatial development patterns in Knoxville area. It is hypothesized that rezoning approvals from undevelopable land classifications to developable land classifications are affected by the area currently designated for agricultural-rural residential use. The results show that the average distances between the closest parcels identified as preexisting development and parcels predicted to be approved for developable land classification drop under the hypothetical land use plan scenarios with expanded area designated for agricultural-rural residential use. The drops of the average distances are due to the increases in the frequency of denials of rezoning petitions for development in the area expanded for agricultural-rural residential uses. These results indicate that a manipulation of agricultural-rural residential use areas encourages rezoning for development closer to the area of preexisting development, and thereby reduces urban sprawl.