Search

The Growing Recruits for Urban Business (GRUB) is an urban agricultural education program in Lubbock, Texas with a focus on youth development. The mission of the program is to provide at-risk youth with the opportunity to learn technical agricultural skills and leadership skills through the management of a 5.5-acre farm. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how the program fosters prosocial decision-making in at-risk youth participants. Using grounded theory, a model was created to illustrate the transition youth experience when developing prosocial behaviors through participation in the program. The model that emerged identifies four main antisocial constructs youth exhibited when they began the program and four prosocial constructs they developed during their participation in the program. The results yielded information regarding participants' individual prosocial behavioral development as well as examples of the long-term benefits experienced at the individual and societal levels as a result of prosocial decision-making. Implications for the role of agricultural education and agricultural educators in transforming marginalized communities are discussed.

YouTube has existed since 2005. Since that time, many marketing professionals have used the site to combine sight, sound, motion, and emotion to appeal to a target audience. USDA-regulated and producer-funded agricultural research and promotion, or checkoff programs, are no different, and many have used YouTube's platform to reach consumers. This study analyzed the USDA-overseen commodity checkoff programs' YouTube presence for views, subscribers, mean length, and number of posted videos. Researchers also analyzed the overall quality of videos, visual frames of the most popular videos, and the quality of the group's YouTube homepage.The YouTube pages were mostly consistent with the brand and categorized videos into playlists, or frames, with recipe videos being the most common. The most watched video had more than nine million views. In many instances, high quality garnered higher viewership, but not always. Content targeted at the audience brought lots of views, more so than quality. Videos that were approximately one minute in length, in general, were viewed more often than longer videos.

The agricultural communications academic discipline has existed for more than 100 years. In that time, approximately 40 academic programs nationwide have formed in some capacity to prepare students for success in the classroom and the workplace after graduation. In the past 25 years, numerous studies relating to the skills, abilities and knowledge employers and industry professionals desire in agricultural communications graduates, as well as the agricultural communications curriculum, have been conducted. The purpose of this research was to review the existing literature from agricultural communications journals, conference proceedings, and theses and dissertations on the topic. This literary review examined 17 articles and found the most popular skills and abilities desired by employers over the years were written communication skills, character skills, visual communications skills, and oral communication skills. The skills found in the curriculum currently being taught were written communication skills, visual communication skills, and oral communication skills.

Discussions on how to conserve and provide enough water has become one of the most highly debated issues in modern society. Although many Extension efforts have engaged the public in understanding behavior and attitudes toward water conservation, limited research has focused on understanding how agriculturalists respond to water conservation messages. The goal of this study was to employ the use of a psychophysiological measure to determine what message components elicited increased information processing during exposure to two water conservation videos. When the two videos were compared in total, no significant difference in heart rate was observed. However, a more granular analysis of phasic or short-term periods of heart rate deceleration revealed five segments of increased cognitive resource allocation while viewing the scientific video and three segments during the testimonial evidence video. Finally, self-report data approached statistical significance, with the subjects reporting greater elaboration while viewing the testimonial evidence video compared to the scientific video treatment. These findings provide unique evidence suggesting that farmers and ranchers allocate greater cognitive resources to scientific evidence, on screen graphics, and narrated statistics.

Employers have identified oral and written communications skills to be the most important skills graduates should possess when entering the workforce. In order for faculty to better understand their students' oral and written communications skills, they should understand what apprehension the students have toward oral and written communications. Specifically, no studies have been found that explore communication apprehension (CA) or writing apprehension (WA) in agricultural communications students. The purpose of this study was to qualitatively explore agricultural communications students' perceptions of CA and WA. Participants believe agricultural communications instructors set up an environment that is conducive to changing behavior. However, students realized and identified areas of improvement that could help them lower their CA and WA. Recommendations for practice are provided in order to help alleviate CA and WA in agricultural communications students.

The number of first generation college students enrolling at universities is on the rise. These students often struggle with the transition into university life because of the lack of knowledge about this new environment. Some do not have support systems that are needed to be successful. Understanding how to assist these college students to improve retention is extremely important. A case study was conducted to determine the motivations and support systems of first generation college students within the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (CASNR) at Texas Tech University (TTU). Nine respondents from different departments in CASNR and one representative of the TTU's first generation college student program were interviewed. It was determined that three factors led to their enrollment: parental/family support, teacher encouragement, and self-motivation. The researchers also found most participants were involved in at least one department/college organization, religious group, or other university program. It was also determined these students depended upon three major support groups and systems, such as parents, friends, and advisers/professors. The researchers concluded the students were very satisfied with their experiences within the college and university as a whole.

Agricultural communications programs should frequently review their curriculum to ensure students receive the highest quality of education possible (Akers, 2000). This research is a nationwide look at recent agricultural communications graduates' employers and/or co-workers. The purpose of this study was to determine which workplace habits and communication skills are satisfactory and which need improvements in the opinion of co workers or employers. Members of several professional agricultural communications organizations were surveyed (N = 88) in the summer of 2008 with a 34.1% response rate. The study found that employers and co-workers of recent agricultural communications graduates, on average, rated trustworthiness, easy to work with, and reliability as the top workplace habits, while creativity, common sense, and organization need improvement. Photo editing, page layout, and public relations skills received the highest mean communications skills scores, while sales, Web design, and news editing were the communications skills that could use some work. (Contains 2 tables.)

Generation Z looks to novel media, including podcasts, to learn of the latest scientific innovations. This study compared the use of logical-scientific (LSC) to narrative (NC) communication in science-based podcasts. Participants listened to a podcast featuring LSC and NC while continuously rating their interest in the podcast. The NC section of the podcast received a higher average interest rating than the logical-scientific section. The LSC section received different levels of interest by science attitude level. Science podcasts should determine whether to focus on NC or LSC based on their target audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lab grown meat is a new technology being developed as a potential alternative protein source. Although some research has been done about public perception of lab grown meat, no studies to date have observed the effects of message themes on public perception of lab grown meat. The study sought to better understand measures of uncertainty and risk and benefit perceptions after viewing a themed blog post about lab grown meat. Participants were randomly assigned one of three themed blog posts - against lab grown meat, neutral, or support lab grown meat. Perception questions were asked after viewing the blog post, and a total of 238 responses were collected. Results indicated the message theme had a statistically significant effect on risk perception, benefit perception, and intention to consume, but not on message evaluation or measures of uncertainty. Further discussion as well as suggestions for future research are included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the direct impact science has on society, it is important for scientists to communicate with the general public (Rose et al., 2020). There are various means of communication that scientists may choose to disseminate their research. Recently, Bowman et al. (2018) assessed how often Extension personnel at a land-grant institution used various communication skills, how important they perceived each skill to be, and how comfortable they were performing them. Land-grant institutions have different communication expectations for their faculty than those at non-land-grant institutions. Therefore, this study focused on the Use, Comfort, and Importance of communication skills according to faculty members at a non-landgrant university. Survey data were collected from 57 (N = 57) faculty members at Texas Tech University, a non-land-grant institution, within its College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. Average Use, Comfort, and Importance scores were calculated for each communication skill and categorized as high, average, or low. These scores indicated whether the faculty members at this non-land-grant institution had adopted each communication skill according to Rogers' Innovation Diffusion Process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]