Search

Historically, education abroad has been designed to provide students a full immersion experience by way of semester or year-long study at a foreign university. However, this traditional format has been redefined to include a variety of non-traditional international experiences, such as international service learning projects, internships, and short-term international experiences. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to develop a deep understanding of the lived experiences of agricultural education undergraduate students participating in a short-term international experience. The overarching question that guided the study was: What were the lived experiences of agricultural education undergraduate students during a short-term international experience? As a result of the short-term international experience, students did not progress fully through all levels of development needed to be considered proficient in cultural competence. However, students demonstrated significant gains in cultural awareness and some gains in cultural understanding and cultural sensitivity. Finally, participating students verified some progress toward building cultural communication competencies as a result of their experience.

This descriptive and comparative study was conducted to explain agriculture teaching faculty involvement in and perceptions of study abroad. Further, faculty involvement and perceptions were compared based on the personal and professional characteristics of faculty. Faculty involvement in this study included a set of activities in which faculty may be involved in addition to leading a study abroad program. Findings revealed that faculty were somewhat involved in study abroad activities and perceived study abroad outcomes as important. However, faculty were slightly less convinced that studying abroad actually produces those outcomes among students. While faculty perceived increasing study abroad participation as a priority at the institutional and college levels, they agreed less with increasing study abroad participation as being a priority among administrators and colleagues in their department. Analysis of differences between groups yielded few significant findings, with the exception of the prior international experience acquired by faculty. Recommendations for future research include replication of this study with faculty from additional universities, as well as qualitative or mixed method approaches to further investigate inconclusive findings of this study.

The exploratory study examined science interest and perceived science competency in middle and high school youth (N=116) who took part in science-related contests (n=49) and non-competitive special interest science programs (n=67). Study participants were dispersed between females (48.3%) and males (51.7%). Three-fourths (75.1%) of the participants belonged to the racial category, white. The majority of youth attracted to science-related professions selected medicine and science and engineering as the top choices. Both science interest and science competence were high among youth in the study. Analysis of science competency indicated a statistically significant difference between girls and boys, with girls scoring higher than boys. The difference in scores between youth participating in competitive programs and non-competitive programs was also statistically significant. As a result of this study, it is recommended that high-quality, cutting edge, hands-on programs are offered to youth in both middle school and high school that emphasize science and provide opportunities for self-challenge as well as challenge against others.

This study describes the development and initial validation of a tool to measure teachers' beliefs about environmental education (EE), beliefs about their own self-efficacy in teaching EE in their classroom, beliefs about the support they receive to teach EE in their classroom, motivators of their decision to teach EE in their classroom, and concerns related to teaching EE in their classroom. Survey respondents (N = 620) were 21-74 years of age. The majority of respondents were female, and most of them taught science than any other subject. Exploratory factor analysis was used to examine the internal structure of the instrument. The cumulative percentage of variance explained by the constructs was approximately 63%, and reliability estimates were 0.857 and above.

Youth ownership and engagement are foundational pieces of the service-learning cycle. Youth voice is posited as a promising practice for building engagement and ownership. As community programs search for proven methods of sustaining youth participation, research that examines the links between practice and outcomes is essential. This study is a phenomenological examination of how adolescents in a non-formal youth development program make meaning of having a voice and its contributions to their ownership and engagement of the program. Findings indicate that an autonomy-supportive environment is a prerequisite for engagement and ownership to develop. (Contains 1 figure.)

Interventions to increase adolescents' healthful food and beverage consumption often fail to demonstrate change. An alternative is to measure a shift in willingness to consume these items as an indicator of movement toward change. A survey was developed to estimate willingness to consume a variety of foods and beverages. Twenty items were identified from five focus group interviews with adolescents. A survey of 234 youths indicated their willingness to consume each item. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in lists of high-fat/sugar-rich items and more healthful foods. Extension educators can use the survey instrument to demonstrate early positive participant change as they strive to deliver programs that meet mission mandates.

As internal evaluators for the 4-H program in two states, we simultaneously yet independently began to change the way we approached our evaluation practices, turning from evaluation capacity building (ECB) efforts that prepared educators to define and measure program outcomes to strategies that engage educators in defining and measuring program quality. In this article, we discuss our similar experiences, how these experiences are changing the ECB work we do, and how changing our evaluation approach ultimately will position 4-H for better evaluations in the future. This shift in evaluation focus has implications for other Extension program areas as well.

Student participation in undergraduate research (ugr) may be influenced by interest in research, future career and educational plans, perceived value of undergraduate research experiences, or perceived competence in research skills. The purpose of this study was to develop a questionnaire that could be used to validly and reliably assess students' perceived value of undergraduate research and perceived confidence in their research skills. Undergraduate student participants ranged in age from seventeen to fifty-two years. Respondents were predominantly female, white, and nonparticipants in ugr. Thirteen items were generated. The internal structure of the instrument was established by extracting two latent constructs using exploratory factor analysis. The cumulative percentage of variance explained by the constructs was approximately 55 percent. Results from the confirmatory factor analysis corroborated the internal structure of the instrument. The most parsimonious model was a twelve-item, two-factor solution with adequate fit. Reliability estimates were generally above 0.80. Initial assessment of the psychometric properties of the Inventory of Student Experiences in Undergraduate Research suggests that it may be a viable tool for undergraduate research programs to use in assessing the results of efforts to increase the value of ugr as well as student confidence in their own research skills.

A successful component of programs designed to deliver youth leadership develop programs are youth educators who understand the importance of utilizing research-based information and seeking professional development opportunities. The purpose of this study was to determine youth educator's perceived confidence in leading youth leadership development programs. Study objectives included describing types of youth leadership development training received by youth educators, describing the number of hours of youth leadership development training received by youth educators, describing the perceived importance of youth leadership development training received by youth educators, describing youth leadership development training delivery mode preferences of youth educators, determining if the addition of hours of training received and the perception of the importance of youth leadership training improved the prediction of perceived confidence beyond that provided by differences in selected demographic variables (gender, age, years of service, education level, office location). The target population for this study was southern region 4-H youth development educators. Results of this study indicate that perceived importance of youth leadership development training is predictive of youth educator's confidence level in teaching youth leadership development.

The literature regarding teamwork has supported the idea that the key to improving team performance is to understand team processes. Early work within the realm of teamwork focused on quantifiable measures of team performance, like number of products developed. The measure of a successful team hinged on whether or not the team accomplished the end task. In more recent years, the focus has shifted to other measures of team functioning such as communication, problem solving, decision making, planning and task coordination, goal setting, and conflict resolution. The purpose of this study is to report the development and construct validity of an instrument to measure perceptions of engagement in teamwork among middle school aged youth.

The use of blogs for informal professional development is a growing phenomenon in higher education. The purpose of the study reported here was to describe Extension faculty's preferences for and perceptions of using an online, particularly social media, environment for professional development. The LSU AgCenter Organization Development and Evaluation unit conducted an 18-week pilot study to determine the feasibility of this delivery method with field and state faculty. Results indicate that blogs are underutilized because of the newness of the technology but possess potential as a delivery method.

Louisiana 4-H Seeds of Service School Gardens, a K-12 Learn and Serve Grant program, provides a descriptive view of how school gardens along with classroom instruction link curriculum to outdoor classrooms. The purpose of the process evaluation was to describe curriculum implementation fidelity, reach of the gardening program to participants, use of garden product, program materials, and teacher characteristics, mediating intervention impact on study outcomes. Eighty-seven percent of classrooms planted vegetable gardens, with a focus on science and math, using the Junior Master Gardener™ curriculum. It was found that school gardens can be effective in supporting classroom curriculum.

This article provides a critical perspective on the increasing involvement of young people in participatory evaluation as well as identifies the factors to consider when designing a youth-led evaluation project. Through this avenue, young people will increase their participation in organizational development and community change. Youth-led evaluation can be a powerful tool for supporting youth to move beyond socially determined roles to become active participants in evaluation and their own growth.