Impact of a national collegiate soil judging competition on student learning and attitudes

Abstract

AbstractThe annual National Collegiate Soils Contest (NCSC) has long been anecdotally recognized as a beneficial event for participating students to practice soil profile descriptions and landscape interpretations. The objective of this study was to quantify student learning outcomes and to identify how students’ perspectives shifted over the course of the week‐long 2019 NCSC, which was hosted by California Polytechnic State University in the San Luis Obispo, CA, area. Participants were asked to complete voluntary pre‐ and post‐contest surveys related to attitudes toward soil science and their knowledge of soil profile description and landscape interpretation, measured using a five‐point Likert scale. Open‐ended questions, which allowed free responses, were also included. Eighty‐three participants completed the pre‐contest survey, and 62 students completed the post‐contest survey. Student understanding increased significantly for five of the seven topics pertaining to soil‐judging‐related skills. Most participants had very positive attitudes toward soil science and soil judging, both pre‐ and post‐contest. Very few significant differences occurred between genders and majors. The most common positive comments were related to location‐based learning, whereas negative comments included environmental factors, such as sun and heat, and long days. Overall, participants indicated the contest was a positive and meaningful educational event, especially for location‐based learning.