Effectiveness of Cooperative Extension Service Newsletters with Different Formats Received by Dairymen in Pennsylvania.

The purpose of this study was to measure the effectiveness of various newsletter formats in increasing knowledge among dairymen. The subject matter of the newsletter was harvesting, storing, and feeding of high-moisture corn. The universe of the study was the dairy farmers in seven counties who attended a five-week clinic relating to herd health and management. The dairymen in all counties took a pre-and post-test of multiple choice questions. The farmers in two counties served as a control group and did not receive newsletters. Four groups of dairymen selected at random in the other five counties received newsletters in one of the following formats: pictorial (one letter weekly for three weeks); outline (one letter weekly for three weeks); conventional paragraph (one letter weekly for three weeks); and pictorial (combination of three letters received at one time). There was no significant difference in knowledge gained among dairy farmers receiving the newsletter with different formats. There was a significant difference between dairymen who received the letters and those who did not: the ones who received them had higher knowledge scores. Younger dairymen showed a higher gain than older ones. Other individual variables were not related to knowledge gained. (author/mf)