Developing and assessing new curriculum for Missouri's future soil evaluators
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One-quarter of households in the state of Missouri are connected to an onsite sewage treatment system. These small wastewater treatment systems rely on the properties of the soil to provide the necessary treatment of wastewater before it reenters the water cycle. The functioning of these systems relies on the evaluation of the soil properties by an onsite soil evaluator. There are currently 46 soil evaluators that serve the 114 counties of Missouri. National estimates show that more than one-third of wastewater professionals will retire over the next five years. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, Missouri Small Flows, and The University of Missouri sought the creation of training materials for new future soil evaluators to assist in preparing individuals for this profession. This project worked to develop these materials for in-person and online workshops and assess the efficacy of these materials for providing information on the necessary skills and knowledge for the onsite soil evaluator profession. An initial survey was developed to discover the parts of the profession that current soil evaluators struggled the most with when they were new to the profession. From this survey, six topics were selected and six courses were developed to provide instruction on these topics. These six courses were prepared for in-person and online workshops. These courses were offered through Missouri Small Flows Continuing Education Workshops and to students at the University of Missouri. Participants completed voluntary pre- and post-workshop surveys related to their self-assessed knowledge of skills and topics associated with the onsite soil evaluator profession. Results showed that across all cohorts, participants demonstrated significant change (p <.05) in their pre and post self-assessed knowledge for the survey items. The effect of these changes varied greatly depending on the background of the cohort, with university students showing "very large" or "huge" effects based on Cohen's d test, while wastewater professionals showed "small" to "medium" effect sizes. Overall, these results suggest that in-person and online workshops can be effective at teaching the skills and knowledge necessary for future soil evaluators.
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M.S.