Items measuring the effectiveness of the Manatee Watch materials also questioned

if people received and used the materials.

 The association of experience with manatees with boater's knowledge, attitudes and

behavior was measured by how many times people had seen manatees while boating or

swimming, if they had visited an area for the purpose of seeing manatees and if they had

ever participated in an educational program about manatees.

 Sociodemographic variables included questions on education, income, boating

experience, distance of home from the waterfront, owning a manatee license plate and

number of years in Florida.

 A panel of social scientists at the University of Florida and state and federal

marine mammal specialists reviewed the survey. The survey instrument was pilot tested

(n = 20) on boaters from Tampa Bay in June of 2002; revisions to the survey were made

based on results of the pilot test. The survey was conducted between July and August of

2002.

 Data Analysis

 Survey data was entered into an SPSS 10.0 software package for statistical analysis.

Answers for open-ended questions were examined and recorded as necessary.

 We compared knowledge, attitudes and behaviors between boaters that received the

intervention (treatment group) and those that did not (control group). The 5-point

knowledge, attitude and belief measures were treated as interval level data; T-tests were

used to identify significant differences in mean scores between the treatment and control

groups. Additionally, T-tests were used to determine significant differences in attitudes,

knowledge and behaviors between boaters who remembered receiving the intervention,

and those that did not. T-tests were used to compare the knowledge, attitudes and