ABSTRACTCONSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN'S CANINE CARE AND WELFARE KNOWLEDGE SCALE: UNDERSTANDING THE LINK BETWEEN CHILDREN'S PERCEPTIONS OF DOGFIGHTING AND THEIR LEVEL OF CANINE CARE AND WELFARE KNOWLEDGE TO INFORM HUMANE EDUCATION INTERVENTIONSByMaria A. IliopoulouThere are more than 40,000 dog fighters in the urban centers of the United States. In Michigan, dogfighting is thriving. In Detroit, the increased prevalence of the illegal blood sport is associated with a lack of educational interventions to prevent dogfighting, animal cruelty and neglect. While there are punitive legal approaches to mediating dogfighting, this dissertation focuses on educational interventions for youth as a preventive approach to address the problem. Animal welfare and humane education can be an effective tool to increase knowledge in children about animals, to shape human perceptions regarding animals and to induce behavior change. Humane education has been employed for over hundred years, but research based interventions and evaluations are limited. This cross-sectional study explored whether children that have a higher level of canine care and welfare knowledge (CCWK) will be more likely to perceive dogfighting as animal abuse than children with a lower level of CCWK. Should this hypothesis be proven, it suggests that incorporating an intervention regarding canine care and welfare into the public school curriculum for Michigan students is a strategy to prevent dogfighting by increasing the CCWK. To test this hypothesis, I first proceeded with the development of the Canine Care and Welfare scale and the children's Perceptions of Dogfighting scale. Then, I explored what is the baseline level of CCWK among the study population. And finally, I investigated the associations between children's perceptions of dogfighting as animal abuse and their level of CCWK, socioeconomic status (SES), dog ownership status, race, age, sex, and prevalence of dogfighting in the community (hypotheses 3-8).This dissertation explored these hypotheses with a sample of 504 children of the ages of 11 to 19 years old from Plymouth Educational Center and Henry Ford Academy: School for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the Canine Care and Welfare scale revealed a second-order model Canine Care and Welfare scale with six factors to be a good fit of the data (chi-square (df=269) = 433, p < .05, CFI = .94, TLI = .93, RMSEA = .05) with a Cronbach's alpha of .78. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the Perceptions of Dogfighting scale indicated a single latent variable model with a single factor to best fit the data (chi-square (df = 5) = 5.58, p = .34, CFI = .99, TLI = .98, RMSEA = .02) and a Cronbach's alpha of .54. The mean (baseline) level of CCWK was 3.51, with a significant difference (p = .01) between boys (M = 3.47) and girls (M = 3.58). The most significant predictor (B = 2.32, p = .00) of children's perceptions of dogfighting as animal abuse was their level of CCWK. The second statistically significant predictor was children's age (B = -1.21, p = .00).
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