Use of Videotape Clips to Bring Contemporary Field and/or Laboratory Research to the Crop Science Classroom

Abstract

ABSTRACTStudent reactions to the use of black and white videotape clips to introduce or amplify subject matter areas in the introductory crop science course at the University of Illinois were taken on a pretest and two posttests during each of two semesters of the 1970–1971 academic year. The data indicate that as the semester progressed, students found the videotape clips: (i) increasingly useful; (ii) more easily adjusted to; (iii) less difficult to follow; (iv) more convincing regarding their usefulness in acquainting them with agronomy research staff and their wares; (v) more helpful in keeping crop science teaching modern; (vi) capable of accomplishing the course objective better than movies; (vii) increasingly less different from color videotapes; and (viii) increasingly free of mechanical difficulty with replay.Some differences in reaction to the use of videotape clips in crop science teaching were observed between course‐required and course‐elective enrollees.