Evaluating the effectiveness of a visually-based farm tractor and machinery safety curriculum compared to a text -based curriculum
Abstract
The goal of this project was to develop and test the effectiveness of a visually based instructional curriculum for use in providing farm safety training to youth with lower levels of literacy and reading comprehension skills. The research was based upon utilization of an alternative visually based version of the Gearing Up for Safety - Production Agriculture Safety Training for Youth Curriculum developed as part of this research. This format of the curriculum was developed to meet the certification training requirements of the Federal Agriculture Hazardous Occupations Order for those youth who are unprepared to successfully utilize a text based manual or computer program due to limited reading comprehension skills. Through utilization of existing visual language forms such as pictorials, photographs, signal words, color combinations, and universal symbols, it was determined that the essential components of the Gearing Up for Safety curriculum could be effectively communicated to this population with outcomes comparable to those achieved with the text based curriculum. The original curriculum was developed utilizing 170 core competencies and core content identified by researchers at Purdue University in the Departments of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Youth Development and Agricultural Education, and a panel of external content experts. The knowledge gains were documented through the use of a validated test administered to 334 youth in Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The test scores from the visually-based version of the curriculum were compared to findings from the text-based computer curriculum and the effectiveness was assessed. Although there was a significant difference in mean knowledge gains between the visually-based and text-based curriculum it was determined after calculating the effect size, that the difference between the means of the two instructional methods was small, and that the null hypothesis could not be rejected. The average knowledge gain across both instructional methods was 17.5%. Analysis using PROC Mixed with upper and lower quartiles based upon pretest scores showed no statistical difference between the two teaching methodologies. Prior experience with farm tractors and machinery showed a marked positive effect on the participant's performance on the pretest. It was concluded that the visually-based format of the curriculum provided a viable alternative or compliment to traditional and computer-based instructional methods to reach populations with lower literacy and reading comprehension skills.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Field, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Agricultural education
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