Utilization of a High Stakes High School Graduation Exam to Assess the Impact of Agricultural Education: A Measure of Curriuculum Integration

Abstract

and Ball , (2008) posited that, "Agricultural education in secondary schools has played an important role in enhancing student achievement in the core subject areas…" (p. 4), while Enderlin and Osborne (1992) reported that agricultural students received higher test scores in biology than students in other science classes. However, further evaluation of this academic integration is warranted to determine which practices are most beneficial to students. This study sought to determine if there was a relationship between the number of agricultural education classes that students took and the subsequent outcomes on the Alabama High School Graduation Exam. To address the research question, binary logistic regression was employed. Results indicated that the model did predict the outcomes on the language and math portion of the exam while the model failed to predict outcomes on the social studies, biology, and reading portions of the exam. This study should be replicated using standardized tests in other states. Comparable data should be collected for students not enrolled in agriculture classes so that the groups mean scores could be compared.

Biology in the Agriculture Classroom: A Descriptive Comparative Study

“…agricultural biology), heavily laden with plant, animal, and environmental sciences (Nolin & Parr, 2013), would perform well on a biology test like the Utah end-of-course core biology test. Further, the main body of research indicates numerous advantages associated to hands on and minds on learning (Degenhart et al, 2007;Morgan et al, 2011;Nolin & Parr, 2013;Parr & Edwards, 2004;Thompson & Warnick, 2007).…”

“…agricultural biology), heavily laden with plant, animal, and environmental sciences (Nolin & Parr, 2013), would perform well on a biology test like the Utah end-of-course core biology test. Further, the main body of research indicates numerous advantages associated to hands on and minds on learning (Degenhart et al, 2007;Morgan et al, 2011;Nolin & Parr, 2013;Parr & Edwards, 2004;Thompson & Warnick, 2007). This is where the agriscience curriculum has claimed it excels because of its intrinsic hands-on learning approach (Parr & Edwards, 2004), with Connors and Elliot (1995) showing that agriscience taught students have performed equally to or better than students in traditionally taught science courses.…”

“…Upon reviewing the literature (Connors & Elliot, 1995;Degenhart et al, 2007;Morgan, Parr, & Fuhrman, 2011;Nolin & Parr, 2013;Parr & Edwards, 2004;Roegge & Russell, 1990;Thompson & Warnick, 2007) one would think that students who are enrolled in a curriculum so saturated in biology principles (i.e. agricultural biology), heavily laden with plant, animal, and environmental sciences (Nolin & Parr, 2013), would perform well on a biology test like the Utah end-of-course core biology test.…”

Examining the Commn Core State Standards in Agricultural Education

“…We also acknowledge the dearth of available research examining agriculture teachers' perceptions related to the integration of math and ELA concepts. We recommend future research exploring agriculture teachers' perceptions, perhaps outside of the context of the CCSS, especially given the links between attitude toward behavior, behavioral intention (Ajzen, 1991), level of academic integration, and student success (Nolin & Parr, 2013;Park, 2012).…”

“…Research highlights career and technical education as a viable context for increasing students' knowledge in math and ELA (Pearson et al, 2010). Furthermore, agricultural education has been identified as an applicable context for the integration of traditional core academic content (Edwards & Ramsey, 2004;Myers & Dyer, 2004;Nolin & Parr, 2013;Phipps, Osborne, Dyer, & Ball, 2008). The effectiveness of agricultural education as a method for developing students' math and ELA skills can be found in a 2013 study conducted by Nolin and Parr.…”