Health education needs of Tennessee public secondary school students as perceived by Tennessee legislators, state board of education members, and school board chairpersons

The purpose of this study was to analyze and assess the health education needs of students in the public secondary schools of Tennessee as perceived by the legislators, State Board of Education members, and local school board chairpersons in Tennessee. To accomplish this purpose the study was designed to answer six specific research questions.

An opinionnaire was designed for use in this study and formulated by a jury comprised of four University professionals (three of which were in the health field), two legislators, and four local school board members. The final opinionnaire consisted of 46 items which were categorized in six sections that addressed socio-demographic information, school health education content areas, health services, health practices, fiscal matters related to health services and health practices. The instrument was mailed to all of the legislators, all of the State Board of Education members, and all of the local secondary school board chairpersons in Tennessee.

Two mailings yielded a response rate of 40 percent in which 106 opinionnaires were selected for use in the study. In addition to simple response percentages, the statistical procedures of Kendall's coefficient of concordance, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, and chi-square were used in the analysis of the data.

The findings of this study as perceived by the respondents were as follows:

1. There were no differences among the Tennessee legislators, members of the State Board of Education, and local school board chairpersons toward health content, services, and practices.

2. Regardless of the salient variables of age, sex, residence, political experience, education, and political party affiliation categories, respondents did not perceive health content, services, or practices differently.

3. Health content areas of first aid, food/nutrition, and physical/dental health were perceived as most important by all respondents, and death education, sex education, and marriage/parenting were perceived as least important.

4. Establishment of a health committee and providing a nursing service were perceived as most important, and least important were providing free school lunches and free physician care by most respondents.