A Computer-Based Tool for Introducing Turfgrass Species

Abstract

An essential component of an introductory turfgrass manage­ ment course is the description of how turfgrass species are adapt­ ed to different cultural systems and environments. The objectives of this project were to develop an interactive pro­ gram to introduce the characteristics of turfgrass species and their optimum environments and to evaluate the students' gain in understanding turf species characteristics through this ap­ proach. A self-contained application, Turf Species, was con­ structed using the SuperCard development tool. Turf Species consists of three sections including a self-paced tour of the spe­ cies, a what if establishment section, and randomly composed reinforcement quizzes with automatic grading. Turf Species was designed to be distributed to students on diskette for self-paced study and reinforcement of material presented during previous lectures. Each student who used the Turf Species tool spent ap­ proximately 2 h evaluating the program. Seventy-one percent of the student evaluators felt that the graphic representations or illustrations for each species aided in their understanding of the material. All of the evaluators indicated that the testing mod­ ule helped in their understanding of the turf species, and 86010 of them suggested that the Turf Species program should be used more extensively in the introductory turfgrass management course. An evaluation of the test scores found on returned dis­ kettes showed an average examination grade of 52% with a range from 5 to 100%.