230 Dozier and Machtmes: Arborists in Louisiana Certification Study Guide (Lilly 2001), which serves as the guide for the Louisiana state arborist licensing exam (Roussel 2003). Each pilot question had five possible responses: 0 indicated a behavior that the respondent did not demonstrate (“never”), whereas a 1, 2, 3, or 4 indi- cated increasing frequency of a behavior the respondent demonstrated (e.g., “rarely” to “always”). Questions were written so that high scores indicated high levels of professionalism or safety and low scores indicated low levels. For example, following currently recommended safety practices (e.g., “I wear hearing protection when on the job” [Lilly 2001]) or being a member of a professional arborist society were considered traits of arborists demonstrating high levels of safety and professionalism, respectively. Structuring questions in this manner assumed that high levels would be more difficult for respondents to demonstrate because behaving more safely or professionally requires extra effort (e.g., to clean up a worksite, to do a job analysis) and/or expense (e.g., to purchase personal protective equipment). Questions were organized into seven domains, or categories, five related to professionalism and two related to safety (Table 1). In May and June 2003, we collected pilot questionnaires from 112 workshop participants (response rate 96%). Based on the analysis of the pilot survey, we eliminated four unsuitable questions and collapsed the 5-point categorical scale to a dichotomous scale (0 = no, 1 = yes). The revised questionnaire contained 58 questions relating to safety and professionalism in arboriculture. We administered revised questionnaires to 509 arborists who attended continuing education workshops from September 1, 2003, through April 2004. Of these 387, (78%) were complete enough to use in the analysis. We analyzed questions measuring professionalism and safety with a dichotomous data model based on Rasch measurement theory (Bond and Fox 2001) using the WINSTEPS© program (Linacre 2003). Table 1. Categories of survey questions relating to safety and professionalism. Question categories Professionalism PET = ethical business practices PIC = interactions with customers PSP = promotion of sound practices n 4 8 7 PLE = follow local, state, and federal regulations 4 PTK = pursue technical training or membership in professional organization Total 26 Safety SPC = perception of safety on the job SBH = safety behavior Total ©2005 International Society of Arboriculture 4 28 32 Figure 1. Age groups for licensed arborists in Louisi- ana. Half are 40 years old or younger. 3 RESULTS Most respondents were white (84%) men (92%). Respon- dents tended to be young (Figure 1), and they were fairly well educated: 82% reported they had a high school degree or higher, and 16% reported they had graduated from college. Most (72%) lived in south Louisiana, where the greatest concentration of the state’s population lives. A small number (2%) of arborists who work in Louisiana live in neighboring states. Two-thirds (69%) of the respondents owned their own business. Respondents had worked as arborists for an average of 12 years. Hispanic arborists had significantly higher person scores than white, black, or American Indian arborists (Table 2), but only three Hispanics responded to the survey, and they had worked in arboriculture only 4 years, on average. We did not detect any significant differences between any other subgroups (e.g., men versus women, business owners versus non-owners). Table 2. Person measures for licensed arborists in Louisiana by ethnicity. Ethnicity American Indian Asian Black Hispanic White Other * n 20 1 20 3 258 7 Mean Rasch score 2.9 b* 3.3 2.7 b 5.4 a 3.0 b 3.3 Means followed by a letter differ significantly (P < 0.05) based on Tukey’s test.
September 2005
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