Search

North Carolina community college faculty teaching courses in early childhood education at 54 of 58 community colleges were surveyed to determine the extent to which they included content knowledge on child health, nutrition, physical activity, and obesity, and adult wellness, in the courses they taught, and to identify faculty member characteristics that were related to how much content knowledge was included on child and adult health and wellness. Nine of 17 courses previously identified as including or likely including content knowledge and experience on health and wellness were taught by one-third to two-thirds of the survey respondents. One-third to two-thirds of the faculty indicated that they included content knowledge or experiences on 11 of 14 health and wellness indicators either "quite a bit" or "a great deal" in their courses. The best predictors of including health, nutrition, physical activity, obesity, and wellness content knowledge and experiences in coursework were the number of courses taught, faculty expertise in health and wellness, instructor demonstrations of health and wellness practices, and authentic and self-directed student learning opportunities. Twenty-one of the survey respondents were identified as highly experienced faculty based on a combination of faculty-related variables. Comparisons between those faculty and all other faculty found that the highly experienced faculty included more content knowledge and experiences on infant and child health and nutrition, child physical activity, infant and child obesity, and adult wellness in their coursework compared to other faculty. Results indicated that community college faculty incorporated health and wellness content knowledge and practice into a number of different courses in a number of different ways. [This report was prepared for the North Carolina Center for Health and Wellness and the North Carolina Institute of Medicine.]

The results from a content analysis of coursework required and offered at the 58 North Carolina Community Colleges to obtain an Associate in Applied Sciences Degree in early childhood education are described. The analyses were conducted to determine the likelihood that the courses could include content knowledge or practice on 12 infant and child health, nutrition, obesity, and physical activity indicators; and two adult wellness indicators. Thirty courses were identified that included descriptions pertaining to one or more of the 14 indicators. Approximately half of the courses were judged as having a higher likelihood of including health and physical activity content, and seven of these courses were required at all or most of the community colleges. Four of the six courses were methods courses, but only one required course was a field placement. The results, taken together, showed that a considerable amount of content knowledge could be included in the existing early childhood curriculum. The following are appended: (1) Coursework Descriptions for Courses Included in the Content Analysis; (2) Rating Scale for Assessing the Likelihood that Course Content Would Include Information on Health and Physical Activity Indicators; and (3) Courses Rated as Having a Low or Higher Probability of Including Health and Physical Activity Content. [This report was prepared for the North Carolina Center for Health and Wellness, Asheville, and the North Carolina Institute of Medicine, Morrisville.]