Assessment of the level of cognition of instruction and student performance in selected production agriculture programs in Ohio.

摘要

The purpose of this study was to detemine the level of cognition of instruction in the classroom being utilized by selected production agriculture teachers from public schools in Ohio. In addition, this study sought to determine the level of cognition at which students in production agriculture classes were performing.;The study was descriptive and correlational in nature. The population consisted of ten purposefully selected production agriculture teachers and their twelfth-grade students.;Using the production agriculture teachers' courses of study, data were collected to determine the level of cognition of instruction. Using a researcher developed written test, data were collected to determine the student level of cognitive performance. A panel of experts established content validity of the written test used, and reliability was established using the pilot test procedure.;The results of this study indicated that teachers devote approximately 9% of the instructional time to leadership instruction, 16% to crop production, 18% to animal science, 41% to agricultural mechanics, and 17% to farm management.;The distribution of instructional objectives across levels of cognition was 31% remembering, 38% processing, 19% creating, and 12% evaluating.;There were significant differences noted among grade levels (9, 10, 11, and 12) by the percentages of instructional objectives written at the various levels of cognition. No significant trends existed in these differences.;Student performance was reflected by percent of questions answered correctly at each level of cognition. The distribution of percentages was: remembering, 64%; processing 55%; creating 40%; and, evaluating, 28%.;The relationship between the level of cognition of instruction and the student level of cognitive performance was significant. Intercorrelations indicated that higher percentages of teachers' instructional objectives classified as remembering, processing, creating, and evaluating were accompanied by lower test scores of students on creating and evaluating test items, and higher scores on remembering test items.