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Full-Text Articles in Education

Agricultural Communications Practitioners’ Perspectives On Skills And Competencies Graduates Need To Be Career Ready: A Mixed Methods Study With Implications For Undergraduate Programs, Elizabeth Wyss, Adam Cletzer Jun 2023

Agricultural Communications Practitioners’ Perspectives On Skills And Competencies Graduates Need To Be Career Ready: A Mixed Methods Study With Implications For Undergraduate Programs, Elizabeth Wyss, Adam Cletzer

Journal of Applied Communications

Agricultural communications (ACOM) programs contend with continuous disruptive change caused by changing audiences, media technologies, and communications objectives. To keep curricula current, ACOM programs often turn to ACOM practitioners for guidance on how to prepare graduates. This explanatory sequential mixed methods study investigated ACOM practitioners in Missouri's perspectives on which skills and competencies were important for career readiness, as well as why they were important and under what circumstances. “Writing” and “reporting” skill categories were deemed most important. The qualitative follow-up strand revealed several clarifying themes. First, foundational skills, such as writing and reporting, are important because they are often …


Developing Writing Self-Efficacy: Perspectives From Agricultural Communications Students, Haley M. Banwart, Shuyang Qu Apr 2023

Developing Writing Self-Efficacy: Perspectives From Agricultural Communications Students, Haley M. Banwart, Shuyang Qu

Journal of Applied Communications

While there is mounting consensus writing is an essential skill required of agricultural communications graduates, there are opposing views as to what educators can do to improve students’ writing education and performance. Self-efficacy research provides one perspective for exploring the relationship between students’ performance and their beliefs in their writing abilities. The purpose of this study was to qualitatively explore how agricultural communications students perceive their writing self-efficacy and what underlying sources shape their self-efficacy beliefs. The findings confirmed agricultural communications students use a variety of sources to inform their self-efficacy beliefs including their interpretations of their writing performance and …


Improvisation For Agricultural Communicators: Investigating The Effect Of Paired Role-Play Discussions On Students’ Empathy Development Using A Quasi-Experiment, Jean A. Parrella, Carrie N. Baker, Holli Leggette, Deb W. Dunsford Nov 2022

Improvisation For Agricultural Communicators: Investigating The Effect Of Paired Role-Play Discussions On Students’ Empathy Development Using A Quasi-Experiment, Jean A. Parrella, Carrie N. Baker, Holli Leggette, Deb W. Dunsford

Journal of Applied Communications

Empathy is integral to effective civil discourse because it enables people to understand others’ perspectives (cognitive) and feel concern toward others’ feelings (affective). Although no studies have empirically investigated agricultural communications students’ empathy development, scholars in other disciplines have identified improvisational role-play exercises as effective means to develop students’ empathy skills. Therefore, we sought to determine how paired role-play discussions affected agricultural communications students’ empathy development when compared to class-wide discussions during the course of one semester using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group research design. The pretest-posttest survey instrument included Reniers et al.’s (2011) Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy. …


Cultivating Creativity: Faculty Conceptions Of Creativity In Agricultural Communications Students, Courtney Gibson, Hope Hancock, Erica Irlbeck, Courtney Meyers Mar 2018

Cultivating Creativity: Faculty Conceptions Of Creativity In Agricultural Communications Students, Courtney Gibson, Hope Hancock, Erica Irlbeck, Courtney Meyers

Journal of Applied Communications

Creativity has been deemed as an essential skill in agricultural communications graduates by both industry and academia, and it has a pivotal role in student success within the classroom and the workforce. In order to foster students’ creative thinking skills, faculty must turn away from traditional norms of lecture-based delivery and foster an environment where students are actively creating and engaging in the learning process. The purpose of this study was to provide insight on the nature of creativity as it relates to agricultural communications curriculum—focused on pedagogical strategies and creative assessments. This qualitative case study examined how agricultural communications …