| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺中教育大學 === 環境教育研究所 === 94 === Pets raising has become popular in Taiwanese families. Pets can be valuable members of the family. A pet can help children learn to be gentle and patient, and how to care for an animal. However, pets raising has been accompanied by many serious issues requiring public attentions. A solution to these issues is to educate the owners treating their pets properly. It is imperative to understand their attitudes and effects being co-owners, because school-aged children are also vital members to care for family pets.
The purpose of this study was to understand the 5th and 6th grade student’s knowledge, attitudes, intention and behavior about the ownership of a pet. The questionnaire method was adopted for this research and the intended subjects are the 5th and 6th grade students from Taichung City and Taichung County in Taiwan. The research instrument was a copy of self fill-in questionnaire including CABS, LAPS and MCPS, by random sampling to get 1540 students to participate. A total there were 1250 valid questionnaires returned.
The results showed that over 90% of the students had an experience of caring for animals in school, and 50% of the students are containing a family pet of any sort. About 70% of the students expressed the intention to own a pet in the future. A girl is 1.6 times as likely as a boy to be a future pet owner. An experienced pet care child is 2.5 times as likely as an unexperienced counterpart child to be a future pet owner. Children with positive attitude toward pet and higher perceived knowledge of pet care had higher quality of child-pet relationship. The factors that affected the children’s behavior intention on the pet, listed from the greatest to the least, including “attitude toward pets”, “significant others”, “perceived facilitation”, “perceived knowledge of pet care”, “child-pet relationship”.
The researchers recommended that the teachers should promote responsible pet care behavior through well-designed curriculum and instruction, especially by addressing the affective dimension of teaching to help the students to formulate positive attitude towards the pets. The schools should provide a suitable environment for the students and teachers to manage the pets for instructional needs. Regulations concerning pets care are also needed to avoid environmental contamination and disease transmission and to prevent the issue of pet abuse. Parents should provide necessary assistance and careful attention to enable their children’s best practice in pet care.
Keywords：elementary school children, pet, attachment, commitment
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