Defining and measuring farmers’ attitudes to farm animal welfare

Abstract

Identifying farmers' attitudes to farm animal welfare (FAW) is an important step in determining farmers' efforts to improve FAW, knowledge of which is of particular importance for understanding how the living conditions of production animals are determined. This study developed a hypothetical model of farmers' attitudes to FAW, including the antecedents of these attitudes and possible influences on FAW-related behaviour. Two models for empirical measurement of attitudes, namely formative and reflective models, were also evaluated and compared. The results suggested that choice of measurement model considerably influences conceptualisation of attitudes and that there may be considerable model misspecifications in previous literature relating to farmers' FAW attitudes. Existing literature on farmers' FAW attitudes was reviewed with the aim of providing a preliminary indication of the coverage of farmers' FAW attitudes. A need for future research related to farmers' attitudes to FAW was identified.

Keywords

animal welfare; attitudes; factor analysis; farmers; measurement models; psychometrics

Published in

Animal Welfare
2014, Volume: 23, number: 1, pages: 47-56

SLU Authors

• Hansson, Helena

  • Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Lagerkvist, Carl-Johan

  • Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Business Administration
Agricultural Science
Psychology (excluding Applied Psychology)


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7120/09627286.23.1.047

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/52016