The effectiveness of instruction about agriculture in the middle school

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to assess selected Missouri middle school students' knowledge of agriculture and attitude towards agriculture before any agricultural instruction, and then to determine the changes that occurred when they received varying lengths of instruction using the agriculture curriculum Exploring Agriculture in America during the 1990-91 school year.;Procedure. The sample included 264 middle school students enrolled in an agricultural literacy program from a population of students from 20 selected school districts used for this study. The students completed two test instruments, the Agricultural Knowledge Assessment Instrument and the Agricultural Attitude Survey, before receiving instruction about agriculture. These instruments were derived from similar tests that measured agricultural knowledge and attitude towards agriculture. After completion of either a 6, 9, or 18 week program of instruction the students again completed the two instruments. Pre-test and post-test scores were calculated for these instruments. Analysis of the data used multivariate and univariate analysis of variance procedures and a Pearson product-moment correlation. The hypotheses were tested at the.05 level of significance.;Findings. A significant relationship was found between the agricultural knowledge and the agricultural attitude mean scores. A significant difference was found for the knowledge and the attitude mean scores in relation to the pre-test and post-test. No significant difference was found for knowledge and attitude mean scores in relation to the length of instruction. No significant interactions were found for knowledge or attitude in relation to instruction length by test type.;Conclusions. The following conclusions were drawn concerning the effectiveness of instruction about agriculture in the middle school. (a) There is a change in the agricultural knowledge and agricultural attitude of the students after they receive instruction about agriculture. (b) The length of time middle school students receive agricultural instruction between 6 and 18 weeks does not affect the change in agricultural knowledge or attitude.