STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT AND THE USE OF A GREENHOUSE-PRODUCTION RECORD BOOK AND POTTED-CHRYSANTHEMUM UNIT OF INSTRUCTION

Keeping records of "hands-on" experiences has provided high school vocational agriculture students with a systematic approach to developing skills for employment. There is a need for a greenhouse-production record book for vocational agriculture students preparing for careers in the greenhouse industry. In this study, a greenhouse-production record book and a unit of instruction for growing potted chrysanthemums were developed and field tested. Students in the study had the opportunity to grow potted chrysanthemums, a commonly grown commercial greenhouse crop, in the school greenhouse.;Under the Vocational Education Act of 1963, vocational agriculture programs were broadened to include off-farm agricultural occupations. The Vocational Amendments of 1968 increased support for vocational education and consolidated previous legislation. By this time, high school students studying vocational agriculture were selecting new careers in forestry, natural resources, horticulture, and agriculture supplies and products as well as farming. The traditional "hands-on" experiences obtained by working on a farm no longer provided the skills needed for off-farm careers.;A greenhouse record book and a potted-chrysanthemum unit were developed to be used as the independent variables in this study. A potted chrysanthemum scoresheet and a potted-chrysanthemum test were developed to measure the achievement of the students. The mean crop quality scores and mean test scores were the dependent variables. All the resources developed for the study were reviewed by a panel of specialists, field tested by teachers, and revised before the experimental study was initiated.;The design selected for the study was a modified posttest-only control group design. The population for this study included selected high schools and area vocational-technical schools with horticulture departments in Central and Eastern Pennsylvania. Twenty-eight schools were contacted by telephone to obtain 20 schools who met the criteria. All 20 schools were used in the study; the schools were randomly assigned to the levels of the treatment. Five classes received the greenhouse record book coupled with the potted-chrysanthemum unit (X(,1)); five classes received only the greenhouse record book (X(,2)); five classes received only the potted-chrysanthemum unit (X(,3)); and five classes received the teachers' own instructional materials (X(,4)).;The practice of providing "hands-on" or supervised experience in agriculture is not a new concept. With the passage of the Smith Hughes Act in 1917, supervised experience in agriculture on a farm became an accepted procedure for providing "hands-on" learning experiences. To supplement classroom instruction, high school vocational agriculture students were required to keep records of the practices that were used on a farm.;The principal conclusion of the investigation was that the potted-chrysanthemum unit was effective in promoting cognitive learning about potted-chrysanthemum production. The results supported the belief that the students who received the potted-chrysanthemum unit would score higher on a cognitive test than students who did not receive the potted-chrysanthemum unit. The potted-chrysanthemum unit and the greenhouse record book when used independently were effective in helping students to grow better quality potted chrysanthemums.