Effects of temperature on reading comprehension and task completion time in agricultural education

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of elevated temperature on students' cognitive performance as measured by reading comprehension and time required for task completion in agricultural education classrooms. The population consisted of all 1990-91 students enrolled in Agriculture Engineering Technology I courses in North Carolina public schools which offered a minimum of two classes of Agriculture Engineering Technology I as a part of their curricula. The sample consisted of 130 students from six schools which were selected at random. Classes within each school were randomly designated as either Group I (Control Group) or Group II (Experimental Group).;The following hypotheses were tested: (1) There is no significant difference between group mean scores on reading comprehension at classroom environmental temperatures of 90-95;This study was conducted using a pretest treatment and post-test quasi-experimental design in which the control and experimental groups were nonequivalent. The data collection instruments for reading comprehension consisted of two reading tasks.;Analysis of variance was used for analysis of the data on the reading comprehension and task completion time scores. The findings of no significant differences in the reading comprehension pretest mean scores and task completion time pretest mean scores between the control and experimental groups at the.05 alpha level indicated that the groups were equivalent. No significant differences were found in the reading comprehension or task completion time post-test mean scores between the control and experimental groups at the.05 alpha level. Therefore, it is concluded that evaluated temperatures (90-95...