<p>This
thesis examines the Elementary Educate Gain Grow (E.G.G.) program and its impact
on student agricultural literacy and interest in relation to the program’s
pilot classroom implementation. The overall shortage of graduates pursuing
careers in the poultry industry was the motivation behind the program
development. The gap between industry demand and the potential entering poultry
workforce may be linked to low awareness and interest relating to poultry
science. This is particularly true in the egg industry. As consumer and
legislature demands continue to affect egg production practices and demand for
eggs continues to grow, it is especially crucial for consumers to become more
aware of industry practices. One way to increase awareness may be to include educational
resources within the K-12 system that are designed to increase awareness and
interest in the industry. By integrating poultry science into required academic
standards, students are given a real-world context to apply STEM skills. This
has the potential to improve the learning experience and stimulate student
interest and awareness. Such resources have the potential to promote future student
engagement in poultry science opportunities. Therefore, the Elementary E.G.G.
program was developed as an integrated STEM and poultry science curriculum with
five online modules, a supplemental interactive notebook, an embedded simulation
game, and a final team project as a resource for upper elementary teachers and
students. All content and materials were developed between fall 2018 and summer
2019 and were made available to 480 Indiana 4<sup>th</sup> and 5<sup>th</sup>
graders (13 teachers, 19 classrooms) across 8 different school districts in the
fall of 2019. The program was designed for a ten consecutive day STEM unit
starting with online modules (days 1 to 5) and followed by a team project (days
6 to 10). There were three overall research questions to assess the impact of
the Elementary E.G.G. program: 1) what was student agricultural literacy
before, during, and after program implementation; 2) did the program have an
effect on student situational interest; and 3) what was the teacher perceived
value and effectiveness of the program as an education resource. </p>
<p>Chapter One provides a literature review outlining past research
that provided background for the development of the Elementary E.G.G. program. </p>
<p> Chapter Two describes the
experimental methods and results of the piloted Elementary E.G.G. program and
how it impacted student agricultural literacy through evaluating three content
assessments and student notebook responses. Additionally, we discuss teacher
feedback, collected at the completion of the program. Quantitative data was
collected to assess student poultry knowledge prior (pre-program), during
(post-modules), and after implementation (post-program) using 14 multiple
choices questions focused on module content. The questions were administered online
using Qualtrics (Qualtrics, Provo, UT). Only student
data that was completed correctly across all assessments and notebook responses
from student’s in corresponding classrooms to the other assessments were used
for analysis. Student notebook responses from 10 corresponding classrooms
(52.63% response rate), were deemed usable for analysis since these classrooms
had students who correctly completed all assessments and qualitative data from
notebook responses could only be matched to classrooms not individual
students. Student content scores (n=111; 23.13% response rate) were
analyzed using an ANOVA post hoc Tukey’s test with SPSS Version 26. Content
knowledge scores increased from 7.99 (SD=1.85) during the pre-program
assessment to 9.76 (SD=2.44) post-modules (<i>p</i> < 0.0001). Student
notebook responses provided qualitative data of their agricultural literacy
development throughout the modules. Student responses from the useable 10
classrooms (n=172; 35.83% response rate) were inductively coded to reveal
patterns that supported increased student agricultural literacy related to each
module’s predetermined learning objectives. The increase in content scores
along with student identification of learning objectives support the program’s
ability to increase student agricultural literacy. Teacher feedback (n=9; 69.2%
response rate) indicated that teachers agreed that each of the components (modules,
notebook and team project) supported the program objectives and the majority
reported that the program encouraged student participation and interest. We
concluded that the E.G.G. program increased student content knowledge of the
poultry industry and was a viewed as an implementable curriculum by teachers. </p>
<p> Chapter Three shares the program’s
procedures and results in relation to student situational interest during the
program’s implementation. A pre-program questionnaire assessed student
individual interest scores while post-module and post-program assessments
evaluated student situational interest (n=111; 23.1% response rate). Increased individual interest scores (3.57±
0.10) may indicate a
higher likelihood of having situational interest stimulated (scale: 1 to 5 with 1 having no interest
and 5 having the highest level of individual interest). Results support
that the online modules and the team project stimulated student situational
interest because total situational interest scores, in addition to each
individual subscale (i.e. attention, challenge, exploration, enjoyment, and
novelty), were above a two on a four point Likert scale (scale: 1 to 4 with 1 having no situational interest
during the activity and 4 having situational interest fully induced). <a>Previous validation of this assessment interprets subscale
or total scores above a two to represent that students are experiencing
situational interest during the activity in question. </a>Attention, challenge,
novelty, and overall situational interest scores were significantly higher
during the team project compared to the online modules (<i>p </i>< 0.01) while exploration and enjoyment subscales were similar.
Student interest themes, coded from their notebook responses, showed interest
in the modules’ learning objective topics with students demonstrating repeated
interest in egg and hen anatomy and animal welfare. Overall, student
situational interest was stimulated by the Elementary E.G.G. program, with
overall interest highest during the team project compared with the online
modules. Furthermore, students self-reported having interest in topics aligned
with the modules’ learning objectives and inductive coding of responses found reappearing
themes of interest relating to hen anatomy and animal welfare. </p>
In conclusion, the results from the
pilot Elementary E.G.G. program support that an integrated STEM and poultry
science elementary curriculum has the potential to increase student
agricultural literacy and can successfully impact student situational interest
by engaging in purposefully developed activities. Further research is needed to
adopt a framework across other poultry science sectors at a national level and
improve accessibility of materials to a wider target audience. Additionally,
improvements in program compliance may aid in increasing response rates of such
research and are needed to increase transferability of findings.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:purdue.edu/oai:figshare.com:article/12249446 |
| Date | 05 May 2020 |
| Creators | Danielle Marks (8800760) |
| Source Sets | Purdue University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis |
| Rights | CC BY 4.0 |
| Relation | https://figshare.com/articles/The_Elementary_E_G_G_Program_Impact_on_Agricultural_Literacy_and_Interest/12249446 |
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