Measuring effective teaching components of school-based agricultural education teaching aspirants during the COVID-19 pandemic

Defining, identifying, and evaluating teaching effectiveness is a difficult proposition;however, measuring the effectiveness of school-based agricultural education (SBAE) teachers is even more difficult considering the diversity of programs nationwide. Faculty in the agricultural education teacher preparation program at Oklahoma State University sought to measure the effective characteristics developed during the Spring 2020 semester, using the effective teaching model as a frame for this study in conjunction with the Effective Teaching Instrument for SBAE Teachers (ETI-SBAE). This approach allowed the research team an opportunity to further investigate the preparedness of SBAE teacher aspirants during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. A descriptive research design was implemented with SBAE teacher aspirants at Oklahoma State University with a junior- or senior-level classification (N = 72). The SBAE pre-service teachers at Oklahoma State University identified a high sense of effectiveness based on the ETI-SBAE instrument. In this group of pre-service teachers, all participants scored an overall teaching effectiveness score of strong to very strong, with the overwhelming majority (79.2%) planning to enter the teaching profession. Additionally, there was a relationship between intention to teach and teaching effectiveness scores, with those who intend to teach reporting higher teaching effectiveness scores. The ETI-SBAE holds utility for SBAE teacher preparation programs.

Attainment of sustainable food security in Nigeria: the role of libraries

PurposeThe quest for sustainable food security (SFS) is fundamental to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In furtherance of their pivotal role in providing the required information resources in support of education and research, libraries are expected to assist the economy in ensuring SFS. The purpose of this study is to investigate how libraries provide information to support research in agriculture towards the attainment of SFS in Nigeria.Design/methodology/approachDescriptive research design was used for the study. Interview and questionnaire were used as the instruments of data collection.FindingsThis study found that the extent of use of library information resources for SFS in Nigeria is high. Libraries, though facing some challenges, contribute significantly to the attainment of food security in Nigeria. It was recommended that libraries should intensify efforts to embark on media literacy programmes and provide information resources for research on agriculture and food production with a view to actualising food security goals specified in Sustainable Development Goals. Libraries should be well-funded to acquire the relevant information resources to aid research into food security and end hunger and poverty across the world.Practical implicationsThis study suggests having better sponsored libraries that can perform as required in advancing agricultural information needs.Originality/valueThis study is a creative attempt to know how libraries can contribute to SFS through the provision of information to farmers and lecturers in agriculture.

Soybean science challenge: growing soybean education beyond our borders

The Soybean Science Challenge (SSC) continues to support Arkansas STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) educational goals. It aligns with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Junior high and high-school students are engaged in active learning and the co-creation of knowledge through the support of classroom-based lessons and applied student research. The SSC educates and engages junior high and high school science students and teachers in 'real-world' Arkansas-specific soybean science education through an original NGSS-aligned curriculum in 7E and GRC-3D format and a continuum of educational methods, which include: teacher workshops, online and virtual live stream education, virtual NGSS aligned mini-lessons for the science classroom, community gardens, personal mentoring, student-led research and corresponding award recognition, and partnerships with state and national educators, agencies and the popular media. The COVID19 global pandemic continued to alter the educational landscape in 2021, despite increased in-person instruction. The Soybean Science Challenge (SSC), by nature of its existing design and methodology, launched online Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) aligned Gathering Reasoning and Communicating (GRC)-3D and 7E lesson plans for teachers. An online course was added, including NGSS-aligned mini-lesson videos for the science classroom, and additional virtual field trips were added to the list on the Soybean Science Challenge website. The Challenge also sponsored the Arkansas Science Teacher Association Conference in October 2021, and the SSC Coordinator Diedre Young conducted a workshop on bringing agriculturally based lessons into the science classroom. The Soybean Science Challenge was also active in science fairs across the state, judging participants at both the regional and state levels. The SSC is in its second year of the junior level award at regional science fairs. Through the SSC, teachers now have access to a plethora of educational instructions that bring real-world agricultural critical thinking into the classroom and students' homes. The SSC has learned that not only do Arkansas teachers and students benefit from these additional resources but teachers and students from other states benefit as well. In 2021, the SSC program reached over 3,000 students and teachers through in-person, digital, virtual, and print methods.

Employing the TAM in predicting the use of online learning during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Online learning systems have become an applied solution for delivering educational content, especially in developing countries, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study is designed to identify the factors influencing the behavioral intention of agricultural students at universities in Iran to use online learning systems in the future. This research uses an extended model in which the constructs of Internet self-efficacy, Internet anxiety, and output quality are integrated into the technology acceptance model (TAM). Data analysis was performed using the SmartPLS technique. The analyses showed the proposed model to be strong in terms of predicting the attitude to online learning and the intention to use it. The extended TAM model fit the data well and predicted 74% of the intention variance. Our findings show attitude and perceived usefulness to have directly affected intention. Output quality and Internet self-efficacy indirectly affected attitude and intention. Research findings can help with the design of educational policies and programs to facilitate education and improve student academic performance.

COVID-19 and Higher Education in Agriculture Sector of Developing Countries: Impacts and Prospects

Like all other sectors, higher education in the agriculture sector has been affected by the COVID-19. Both teachers and students have faced problems in communication, learning and motivation during online education. The major issues include the limited internet access coupled with poor supply of electricity especially in rural areas, in most of the developing countries. In this article, we have discussed various challenges faced by agricultural students and teachers during online teaching and learning after the COVID-19 pandemic. The article also discusses prospects and strategies to improve online teaching and learning in the higher education of the agriculture sector of developing countries.

Investigating Technology Transfer Gaps Through Farmers Field School

Technology transfer is one of the core elements in a rapidly changing agricultural sector. However, the booming of agricultural innovation is not followed by the generation of methodological tools able to diffuse innovation in farmers and other stakeholders. For the last decades, Farmers Field School (FFS) approach is offering technology transfer and co-generation, infused by agricultural extension. Traditional FFS form is a learning by doing method and farmers are learning from other experienced farmers. Even though FFS has various forms which are trying to cover gaps between science and practice, there are still different methodological challenges in each FFS form. In this research, we propose a Hybrid FFS strategy, assembled by the strengths of various FFS forms and trying to close these gaps. We review and implement a metaanalysis of FFS forms, investigating these gaps. Afterwards, a comprehensive, holistic and dynamic conceptual and methodological model, derived from meta-analysis is proposed to cover the technology transfer methodological gaps. Our Hybrid FFS strategy highlight strategic questions which offer the appropriate background for establishing a strong educational strategy and overcome possible challenges. "Learning by doing" is supported from farmers to farmers as well as from experts to experts. Various stakeholders from value chain are promoted to use and be familiarized with new technologies, practical tools and the internet, as well as develop their managerial skills in value chain products. Modules cover the gaps ofrecent FFS approaches, by incorporating issues of sustainability and certification of value chain products, with business and entrepreneurship. Flexibility of a hybrid (virtual and physical) environment resolve complex situations (i.e. COVID-19). This methodology can be useful to policy makers managers or agricultural extension researchers, in order to construct, implement and evaluate an FFS agricultural program. Hybrid FFS strategy describes how agricultural education approaches of the past can create educational environments of the future and lead learning accelerators in agricultural sector.

Suitable strategy to overcome the barriers in online learning

As a consequence of COVID-19 pandemic, lockdown was imposed and sudden changes in the education system from traditional face to face to fully online mode. The objective of the study is to analyse the barriers faced by the students in online learning and verify with Confirmatory Factor Analysis and suggest a suitable strategy to overcome the barriers. The study was conducted at Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University with 240 students who participated in online learning. The results revealed that greater proportion of the students often used smart phone (92.08%) for online learning. About 40.00 per cent of the students spent 19-28 hours per week in online classes. The study revealed nine barriers in online learning as perceived by the students namely unfavourable learning environment, lack of knowledge on effective use of online apps, lack of expertise and skills in using the apps, it is expensive, online learning is time consuming, internet connectivity issues, lack of uninterrupted power supply, problem with application compatibility with ICT tools and health issues. For barriers in online learning the goodness of fit of model indices were satisfactory. The factor loadings were greater than 0.40 and reliability of two factors technical barriers and personal barriers were 0.709 and 0.812 respectively. The strategies to overcome the barriers in online learning included the creation an organised study space, active participation of the students, eliminating distractions, etc.

The Dynamics of Youth Employment and Empowerment in Agriculture and Rural Development in South Africa: A Scoping Review

Over the years, South Africa has made significant investments aimed at transforming the agricultural sector to deliver on rural economic development and job creation. These investments have had varying levels of success;still, what is worrying is the high youth unemployment rate which is amongst the highest globally. We conducted a scoping review using the PRISMA-P guidelines to identify the challenges youth face in accessing sustainable employment in the agriculture sector. Peer-reviewed studies were retrieved from online databases (Web of Science, Cab Direct, and Science Direct) for 1994–2021. The findings showed that youth are still facing significant challenges in the demand and supply side of the labour market and lack of inclusivity in policy formulation and implementation, limiting their involvement in agriculture and rural development initiatives. Policies and strategies responding to these challenges exist, and the spectrum of support services provided are primarily focused on entrepreneurship. Yet, the implementation of programs and initiatives has not been successful. This could be attributed to the obstacles persisting in the sociopolitical environment in SA, causing additional barriers to program implementation. Therefore, to enhance youth involvement in agriculture and rural development, there is a need to connect more rural youth to support services, local employment programmes, and youth inclusion in policy formulation processes. Additionally, the focus of policy and programs should be broadened to cater to different youth knowledge and skill profiles.

Can Videos Be a Useful Tool to Enrich Classroom Learning in an Applied Science Such as Vegetable Production?

California has an aging vegetable-crop producing workforce and well-trained workers are urgently needed. The States public universities with agricultural programs thus have a critical role in preparing the future workforce to sustain the State s economy. The aim of this project was to develop educational materials to train the next generation of workers with the technical, agronomic, economic and ecological skills required to keep Californias vegetable crop sector innovative and competitive. Thirty high-quality instructional videos on vegetable crop production, marketing, and postharvest processing and handling systems were created. Students were surveyed on the utility of selected videos, by assessing various parameters of knowledge before and after watching the videos. The videos made positive and significant changes in the knowledge of the topics among students. Therefore, incorporation ofvideos into agricultural curricula should contribute to effective communication and understanding of concepts by post-secondary students.

The COVID-19 pandemic and agricultural education: an exploration of challenges faced by teachers. (Special Issue: Natural sciences education in a COVID-19 world.)

Exploring the challenges faced by agriculture teachers during the Spring 2020 semester brings to light the reality of teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, understanding the challenges faced by teachers empowers the profession to make agricultural education more resilient to broader, social forces in the future. In this study, a national sample of agriculture teachers were asked to identify the three most pressing challenges they experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using qualitative research methods, eight challenge themes emerged: (a) Communication, (b) FFA (National FFA Organization, a student leadership organization previously named the "Future Farmers of America"), (c) Instructional Quality, (d) Program Facilities and Activities, (e) Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE), (f) Student Motivation, (g) Technology and the Internet, and (h) Work-Life Balance. Using quasi-statistical methods, the most commonly reported challenges were identified - Instructional Quality, FFA, and Student Motivation. Analysis of all the challenges suggested permeation across each aspect of the three-component model of agricultural education. Furthermore, many challenges appeared to be related to each other. Finally, analysis of the results illuminated responding teachers, and their students, each experienced the challenges brought about by COVID-19 differently, including evidence of exacerbated educational inequality for students from lower income households.

Enhanced Robots as Tools for Assisting Agricultural Engineering Students’ Development

Inevitably, the rapid growth of the electronics industry and the wide availability of tailored programming tools and support are accelerating the digital transformation of the agricultural sector. The latter transformation seems to foster the hopes for tackling the depletion and degradation of natural resources and increasing productivity in order to cover the needs of Earth’s continuously growing population. Consequently, people getting involved with modern agriculture, from farmers to students, should become familiar with and be able to use and improve the innovative systems making the scene. At this point, the contribution of the STEM educational practices in demystifying new areas, especially in primary and secondary education, is remarkable and thus welcome, but things become quite uncertain when trying to discover efficient practices for higher education, and students of agricultural engineering are not an exception. Indeed, university students are not all newcomers to STEM and ask for real-world experiences that better prepare them for their professional careers. Trying to bridge the gap, this work highlights good practices during the various implementation stages of electric robotic ground vehicles that can serve realistic agricultural tasks. Several innovative parts, such as credit card-sized systems, AI-capable modules, smartphones, GPS, solar panels, and network transceivers are properly combined with electromechanical components and recycled materials to deliver technically and educationally meaningful results.

Issues challenging food security goals in the era of disruptive change and opportunities to revisit extension education strategies. (Special Issue: Journal of international agricultural and extension education.)

This study examined the challenges to the achievement of food security goals and the role of Extension Advisory Services (EAS) at a time when the world is faced with the double burden of an immediate pandemic in the midst of ongoing climate change events. EAS have always played vital roles in past emergencies around the world and are being challenged to respond timely and appropriately in these times. The purpose of this paper was to (i) describe the impacts of disruptive changes on food systems across the world, (ii) present key agricultural education and extension responses to such changes and (iii) make recommendations to strengthen EAS responses. There was a focus on Covid-19 and climate change as disruptive changes. An internet-mediated approach to source information and a review of published literature were used to gather information. Results detailed the several impacts of Covid-19 and climate change in seven regions of the world, the impacts of both disruptive events on the four pillars of food security, and some global responses in the areas of agricultural education and extension to meet present challenges. Recommendations included the strengthening and deepening of collaboration of all extension service providers at country level to ensure coordinated responses, building stronger community resilience and extension research directed to assist the reengineering of extension organizations in terms of structure, leadership and management.

Teachers' stress, coping strategies, and job satisfaction in COVID-induced teaching environments

School based agricultural education has long been associated with teacher stress, burnout, and attrition, and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has likely exacerbated these conditions. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine the differences in Arkansas SBAE teachers' stress, coping strategies, and job satisfaction based on teaching environment, and demographic variables during the pandemic. Results showed that respondents experienced fatigue, frustration, worrying, forgetfulness, and impatience, and that these symptoms of stress along with related sources of pressure were negatively correlated with job satisfaction. However, teaching environment resulting from the pandemic was not shown to predict job satisfaction. Nonetheless, results showed that teaching is stressful regardless of situation, and respondents who utilized coping strategies were found to have higher levels of job satisfaction. Therefore, we recommend that administrators work with teachers to develop coping strategies for dealing with stress.

Competency of faculty members in online teaching of agricultural undergraduates during COVID-19 pandemic: a study in north-east India

Quality education is crucial for growth and development of a nation. Teaching learning process worldwide which was disrupted by COVID-19 pandemic has found consolation through online remote teaching. Competency of teachers plays an important role in the success of online teaching. The study was conducted in North Eastern region (NER) of India to assess the faculty members' competency in online teaching of agricultural undergraduates. For the study, all the teachers of institutesin NER imparting undergraduate level degree course in Agriculture were selected. Online questionnaire was sent to all the teachers of which 75 responses were received, which formed the respondents of the study. Five online teaching competency dimensions were considered for the study. The respondents had highest mean competency score in Teaching Ethics and lowest in Content Facilitation. Online teaching competency had significant and positive correlation with online teaching experience;attitude towards online teaching;and organisational facilities & support. The study recommends providing organizational facilities and support in the form of adequate infrastructure and conducting trainings on awareness and usage of e-teaching resources and tools to improve the online teaching competency of the teachers.

An opinion study about online learning method conducted during COVID-19 pandemic among agricultural students

Online learning is an educational process which takes place over the internet as a form of distance education where the learners and the instructors are not in the same place. Due to COVID-19 pandemic circumstances, online learning played an indispensable role in education programs, where most of the educational institute shifted towards online learning platform to up keep the academic activities. For a developing country like India, the use of ICT in education process still poses many challenges and it is not clear about its effectiveness. The research study focuses on agricultural students' opinion about online learning method which was conducted using social distancing during COVID-19 pandemic situation. For the purpose, an online survey was conducted among 60 randomly selected undergraduate students who had attended the online classes. The results indicated that majority of the students (91.70%) preferred to use smart phone for online learning. Most of them viewed that live classes with quiz at the end of each class helps in effective learning. Majority of the students opined that more interaction during online classes makes it interesting, whereas network connectivity related issues in rural areas makes it a challenge for students to make use of online learning initiatives. However, in agricultural education system, many courses are practical oriented, conducting practical classes in online mode may not be possible. Hence, there is a need to device a hybrid mode of learning. The results of the study can be helpful in making online learning more effective.

Deciphering drivers of ICT use in agricultural education

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is an important element in the education scenario to prepare citizens for the future. Since, its inception factors influencing the use have not been studied more, hence an exploratory research study has been framed for finding those factors among the students of CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, Haryana during 2018-19. The data were collected from 200 respondents using structured interview schedule and analyzed using standard methodology. The findings revealed that the institutional factors were perceived highest with composite index value (CIV) of 70.18, followed by personal (67.35), technical (59.15) and economic constraints (47.33). Although, these factors could be overcome through implementing remedies suggested by students like;teaching should be through ICTs, followed by improved internet connection, training programme related to use of ICTs, etc. but an effective national level policy related to infrastructure facilities, software licensing, availability of high quality ICT gadgets at subsidized rates, free and regular training programmes, etc. are possible ways to deal with these factors especially during COVID-19 pandemic. The correlation and regression of different variables, i.e. age, education, family education, scientism, annual expenditure, mass media exposure, information seeking behaviour and risk orientation exhibited negative and significant effect with their perceived personal factors at 0.05 level of probability. Hence, the paper recommends that effective utilization of ICT depends not only upon the available ICT resources, but also effective utilization of the same.

Viewpoint: The future of work in agri-food.

As countries develop, agriculture's role as domestic employer declines. But the broader agri-food system also expands, and the scope for agriculture-related job creation shifts beyond the farm. Historically, technological revolutions have shaped, and have been shaped by, these dynamics. Today, a digital revolution is taking hold. In this process of structural transformation, societies evolve from having a surplus to a shortage of domestic farm labor, typically met by foreign agricultural wage workers. Yet anti-immigration sentiments are flying high in migrant-destination countries, and agricultural trade may be similarly challenged. Robots in the fields and packing plants offer an alternative to a diminishing labor supply. COVID-19 will reinforce trends of digitization and anti-globalization (including in food trade), while slowing economic growth and structural transformation. In the world's poorest countries, particularly in Africa, labor productivity in agriculture remains at historically low levels. So, what role can the agri-food system play as a source of employment in the future? This viewpoint elaborates on these trends and reviews several policy options, including inclusive value chain development, better immigration policies, social insurance schemes, and ramp up in agricultural education and extension.