Can Videos Be a Useful Tool to Enrich Classroom Learning in an Applied Science Such as Vegetable Production?

Abstract

California has an aging vegetable-crop producing workforce and well-trained workers are urgently needed. The State’s public universities with agricultural programs thus have a critical role in preparing the future workforce to sustain the State’s economy. The aim of this project was to develop educational materials to train the next generation of workers with the technical, agronomic, economic and ecological skills required to keep California’s vegetable crop sector innovative and competitive. Thirty high-quality instructional videos on vegetable crop production, marketing, and postharvest processing and handling systems were created. Students were surveyed on the utility of selected videos, by assessing various parameters of knowledge before and after watching the videos. The videos made positive and significant changes in the knowledge of the topics among students. Therefore, incorporation of videos into agricultural curricula should contribute to effective communication and understanding of concepts by post-secondary students.