Abstract:
There is a need to develop multimedia tools that can be incorporated into curricula to introduce the basics of plant breeding as a method to recruit and to encourage students to pursue plant breeding programs. To fill this need, we developed an online module that permitted the understanding of the basic techniques and concepts of plant breeding. The design of this study was pre-test and post-test descriptive and comparative, which involved the use of general knowledge instrument to gather pretest and post-test data for measuring differences resulting from a treatment, which was the introduction of a “Plant breeding” module. In addition, student perception questions were collected. The target population consisted of all undergraduate students (N=133) enrolled in the College of Agriculture at Purdue University during the Fall and Spring semesters of 2010, as well as, the Spring semester of 2011. Students’ post-test knowledge scores were slightly lower than pre-test scores, even though the percent change was minimal. We found that this module was a beneficial tool for student-learning and recommended it to be used by faculty to simulate an authentic hands-on learning experience.
Key words: corn, online-module, plant breeding, sorghum, student-learning, STEM
 9 Torrez-Avila March 2013.pdf | [ ] | 1007 kB |
