A Multi-State Evaluation of Secondary Agricultural Education Students’ Performance on Industry-Based Standards

Abstract

This examination of secondary agricultural education students’ performance was used to determine if students could perform up to industry standards. In this study, the industry standard were blueprints created by engineers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Students had to fabricate a Cost-effective Roll-Over Protective Structure (CROPS) to be placed on a tractor within their community. All the pieces of the CROPS were inspected by an outside consultant with experience with inspecting projects and visual inspection of welds. It was found that students struggled the most with fabricating the axel brackets. The axel brackets required the most drilled holes and cuts of all the pieces therefore creating more areas where mistakes could be made. Students fabricated the vertical support tubes with the most accuracy. According to the DataDriven Decision Model (DDDM), teachers analyzed student work, provided feedback, and need to incorporate this new knowledge into their future instruction to increase the accuracy of their students’ fabrication skills. Teacher trainers are recommended to incorporate this performance data into the summer training to better prepare teachers. The inclusion of teaching strategies need to be created for secondary teachers such as peer evaluation of measurements prior to drilling and cutting.