Each year, County Extension Agents dedicate many hours toward educational
programs to serve clientele. One of the largest programs in 4-H is the youth livestock
project. Livestock projects take a significant amount of time and there is a variety of
programs offered to youth exhibitors. One of these educational programs offered though
Texas Cooperative Extension is Quality Counts. Quality Counts focuses on teaching
character education and quality assurance to youth livestock exhibitors.
The purpose of this study was to determine the total number of youth livestock
projects entered in Texas during 2006 and identify any apparent educational trends. The
second objective of this study was to determine how Quality Counts is perceived by
County Extension Agents.
To complete this study, a web based survey was sent administered to every County
Extension office in Texas. 250 of 254 counties responded to the survey (98.43%
response rate). From data collected, it was revealed that there were a total of 89,839 total
livestock projects entered in 2006 at the county level (76,225 market and 13, 614
breeding). This data was compared to a previous study completed in 2001 by Boleman,
Howard, Smith, and Couch. This data compared market livestock entry numbers. Based upon the comparison, market livestock projects have increased by 7.06% since 2000.
Beef cattle and goats have increased, while sheep and swine have slightly decreased.
Roughly a third of Texas counties will be utilizing the Quality Counts curriculum
during the year 2007. Qualitative analysis reveals that Quality Counts is seen as
educationally useful and easy to implement into traditional livestock educational
programming, and is most often used as part of ongoing project clinics. Most
importantly, program participants are increasing their knowledge of livestock projects,
character, and ethics. Respondents are also beginning to see program participants’
behaviors change because of participating in Quality Counts.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2412 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Coufal, Dustin Wayne |
| Contributors | Boleman, Chris T. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Thesis, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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