Testing An Adoption Decision-Making Model of Nursery and Greenhouse Growers’ Water Reuse in the United States

Abstract

There is an increasing necessity to implement water treatment technologies in order to optimize the use of freshwater resources as the global nursery and greenhouse industry grows. Unfortunately, their adoption has been limited. This study tested a conceptual model for technology adoption based on the Theory of Diffusion of Innovations in tandem with Adaption-Innovation Theory and Critical Thinking Style literature. Using a series of linear and logistic regressions, three characteristics of an innovation—relative advantage, complexity, and trialability—were identified as significant drivers of growers’ decisions to implement water treatment technologies. Growers who seek information when thinking critically and are more innovative when solving problems did not perceive new technologies to be compatible or to possess a relative advantage over their current systems. The results suggested most growers are unsure of how new technologies fit into their existing operations. Creating opportunities for growers to get hands on experience with new technologies, such as a field day, could assist in increasing growers’ implementation. In addition, developing a series of online videos highlighting how to use, adapt and troubleshoot the equipment would greatly enhance chances of long-term adoption.

Cultural Differences in Critical Thinking Style: A Comparison of U. S. and Chinese Undergraduate Agricultural Students

“…The UFCTI has been established for 10 years, and it has sound psychometric properties (Lamm & Irani, 2011). Previous studies been applied UFCTI in the context of integrating critical thinking into agricultural education and extension programs, such as assessing the critical thinking styles of greenhouse growers (Lamm et al, 2019), opinion leaders (Putnam et al, 2017), and international faculties (Barrick & DiBenedetto, 2019). The UFCTI consists of 20 statements assessing individuals' preferences for critical thinking styles on a five-point Likert-type scale, with 1 representing "strongly disagree" and 5 representing "strongly agree".…”