Abstract:
Instructors often reflect upon their teaching techniques as they begin the process of constructing a course that contains both a lecture component and a laboratory experience. Often instructors are placed in a situation, due to limited resources, where laboratory activities can not coincide directly with the lecture portion of the course both in time and subject matter. Recognizing the laboratory as a time where students can apply the content knowledge presented in lecture to influence retention of information it is important to give each student the best experience possible. Noting the importance of the laboratory portion of agricultural mechanics and having limited space, equipment, and financial resources, instructors must create methods to maximize the educational impact of the laboratory experience and serve student learning. Students were grouped by prior experience in content area as well as students having completed or not completed a laboratory activity related to the lecture material at the time the lecture exam was given. Test scores were analyzed in an introductory agricultural mechanics course to evaluate possible group differences. Findings indicated no significant differences on content knowledge test scores between students who possessed prior experience versus those students who did not possess prior experience in the subject of small engines. Timing of the laboratory activity was found to have no bearing on how well students performed on the content knowledge assessment.
Keywords:
undergraduate, agricultural mechanics, laboratory experience timing, student knowledge-level
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