18 pages, Organizational culture shapes how members of a group act. The culture has the power to exclude potential new members who do not fit into the culture of the organization. Research on urban school-based agriculture programs has indicated that urban agriculture students face barriers to their participation in the National FFA Organization (FFA). Experiences of urban FFA members at a National FFA Convention can provide researchers with an understanding of how urban agriculture students view the FFA organization. The purpose of the case study was to explore how urban FFA members experienced the FFA organizational culture while attending the 2012 National FFA Convention. We followed one urban FFA chapter during the 2012 National FFA Convention and conducted interviews before, during, and after the convention. We also conducted focus group interviews and made observations. Belmont FFA members did not generally perceive their experiences at the convention as a barrier to their involvement in FFA and were generally positive toward the FFA artifacts, beliefs, and values they identified at the convention. However, these findings need to be understood in the context of the members who attended the convention as their motivation to participate in FFA may have positively influenced their views.
14 pages, Demand exists for a workforce with graduate degrees in agricultural and environmental sciences. However, research on effective graduate student recruitment into colleges of agricultural and environmental sciences (CAES) is limited. Prospective graduate students consider distinctive factors when selecting an institution, necessitating further examination of their communication channel use. Media richness theory posits communication media are on a continuum of leanness to richness, and agricultural communicators can select the proper medium for an audience based on the message and its richness. The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of media richness during the recruitment of prospective graduate students. Nineteen graduate students representing 10 departments within a CAES participated in semi-structured interviews. Qualitative inductive coding revealed three prominent communication channel themes: online, indirect, and direct. Findings indicated participants began their journey using indirect and online channels with less personalization and moved into richer media with the capacity for immediate feedback as their interest increased. Participants expressed disappointment at online channels with outdated information because they felt impersonal. Participants preferred phone or zoom calls as rich media to understand institutional culture, valuing personalization and immediate feedback from current students.
10 pages, United States science scores have remained stable over the past 12 years, and as a result secondary school students have been deemed less proficient than international peers. Additionally, there has been increased pressure for accountability from both teachers and students. This highly competitive performance-based classroom environment has threatened student motivation. Due to this, many have moved away from an emphasis on rote memorization and lessened the threat of performance testing by using inquiry and problem solving strategies as a way to provide more autonomy in the classroom. Agricultural education has joined the movement in providing autonomy in the classroom through inquiry-based teaching methods. This study investigates the perceptions of school-based agriscience students toward agriscience and inquiry-based instruction when taught through inquiry-based instruction. The perceptions of 170 secondary agriscience students who responded to the questionnaire indicated more favorable attitudes toward agriscience. Participants also had positive responses to items regarding agriculture’s importance to society, and influence in their daily lives. It is recommended that inquiry-based instruction be utilized in the agriscience classroom to promote student learning and motivation. Further investigations on the impacts of student motivation in the classroom when inquiry-based instruction is utilized in school-based agriscience education should be investigated.
