Predicting disadvantaged smallholder farmers’ intention to take distance learning: evidence from China

Yang, Lijun; Yang, Guang

doi:10.1007/s12564-022-09761-w

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

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“…Patillo et al (2021) demonstrated the efficacy of digital learning of southern Missouri farmers, and they also point out that the traditional extension approach such as one-on-one consulting or farm visits cannot be completely replaced by the online educational programming [ 30 ]. Yang and Yang (2022) found that farmer age, education level, and profits are influence factors of farmers’ interest of distance learning [ 12 ]. To our knowledge, our study is the first report to investigate how farmers’ demographic characteristics affect their interest in different sections of an agricultural MOOC.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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University MOOC should be added with farmer interested sections and provide individualized service to adapt to farmer training

Zhang,

Hua,

Liu

et al. 2023

PLoS ONE

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Vegetables represent an important agricultural industry in China. New farmers and new technologies for vegetable production have emerged in recent years, which makes farmer training very necessary. On the other hand, massive open online courses (MOOCs) are currently widely used in universities. The purpose of this study is to investigate the importance of different sections of a university MOOC focused on olericulture to farmers with different demographic characteristics and provide a basis to improve university MOOCs for farmer training. The survey results suggest that the age, education level, gender, farmer scale, facility type and profit of farmer learners are important factors determining evaluations of the importance of different MOOC sections, indicating that services customized to different farmer populations are necessary. Among different sections of MOOC “Olericulture”, farmers with younger age, higher education, larger farm, more advanced facility and more profit were more interesting in sections include cultural, social and theoretical knowledge, and less interesting in practical skill sections. Based on the survey, eight new sections including one marketing subsection (new agricultural supplies and market news), one social subsection (laws and regulations), two practical subsections (practice videos, photos and videos from other farms), and three comprehensive subsections (discussion of practical issues, mechanization, and smart olericulture) were added to the original MOOC, and the results indicate that this improvement is efficient in enhancing the importance evaluations and profits of all farmer learners, especially among those with high education levels.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On-line courses should be one of the ways to solve this problem [ 11 ]. In recent years, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, online training programs have become more popular [ 12 ]. However, the online learning resources for farm training are very scarce now in China.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%