• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.3293-3298
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• 2013

Background: The study investigated the influence of culturally-based health beliefs on engagement in healthy lifestyle behaviour. Specifically, the study compared levels of engagement between Western and Chinese youth in Australia and assessed the extent to which culture-specific attributions about the causes of illness, and health beliefs, predict engagement in healthy lifestyle behaviour. Materials and Methods: Ninety-four Western and 95 Chinese (N=189; Mean Age=20.8 years, SD=3 years) young adults completed an online questionnaire. Predictor variables were cultural health beliefs measured by the Chinese Cultural Views on Health and Illness scale (CCVH, Liang et al., 2008), and illness attributions beliefs measured by the Cause of Illness Questionnaire (CIQ, Armstrong and Swartzman, 1999). Outcomes variables were levels of engagement in healthy lifestyle behaviour. Results: Results indicated that Chinese participants have a significantly lower exercising rate and healthy dietary habits compared to the Western sample. Moreover, Chinese participants were found to believe more strongly than Westerners that cancer was associated with factors measured by the Traditional-Chinese-Model (TCM). Finally, the observed relationship between cultural health beliefs and physical inactivity was mediated by attributions of illness, in particular to the supernatural subscale, with the Sobel Test showing a significant mediation (z=-2.63, p=0.004). Conclusions: Mainstream approaches to encourage healthy lifestyles are unlikely to be effective when educating Chinese youth. Instead, health promotion programs should attempt to address the illness attribution beliefs and educate Chinese youth about the role of diet and exercise in prevention of diseases such as cancer.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.357-374
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• 2004

This paper described the types and characteristics of educational programs in major natural history museums of the world. Data were collected from the websites, annual reports, and written materials of the Natural History Museum at London, Australian Museum at Sydney, Field Museum of Natural History at Chicago, Smithsonian Museum at Washington D.C, Royal Tyrrell Museum at Canada and American Museum of Natural History at New York. As the result of this study, we presented ten types of educational programs, which were moveable museums, workshops, lecture/courses, festival/events, discovery activities, scientific exploration/research projects, field trips, youth curators/internship, loan materials and camp/tours. We also described the examples equivalent to each program type. The characteristics of educational programs provided by museums as informal learning settings were analyzed in terms of their themes, participation levels, connection with exhibition, relation to curriculum, and learning activity levels. Information in this paper will assist science teachers, museum educators and curators: (1) to design and implement various types and contents of educational programs; (2) to use characteristics of educational programs to assess and develop them; (3) to make important contributions to science education that involves the introduction of various scientific aspects and collections to the public, and the use of programs for science learning and teaching coherent to existing curricula.