Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Open Access Thesis

Keywords

4-H clubs--Officials and employees--Training of; Experiential learning;

Abstract

Experiential learning can be traced to centuries ago, but actual models were not developed until the 1970s and beyond. The Iowa 4-H and Youth program, which is part of the Extension Service United States Department of Agriculture, has had experiential learning as its foundation since its inception early in the 20th century. Yet even 4-H, with it's well-known "learn-by-doing" philosophy, did not have a specific process with which to model learning experiences until 1992. This study examined the effectiveness of a cooperative training session which utilized the experiential learning model given to high school age leaders of the Northeast Iowa 4-H and Youth program. The purpose of the training was to prepare the County 4-H Council members to train 4-H club members with a program intended to help club meetings and committees function more successfully. The experiential learning model, cross-age teaching, youth development, and leadership development were combined in this training session. Identical questionnaires were administered to subjects before and after the training session. Statistical analyses consisted of descriptive statistics, frequency distributions, cross tabulations, and t-tests. Overall, the study concluded that as a result of the training, County 4-H Council members' (a) perceived knowledge level of program concepts increased, (b) perceived comfort and preparedness levels with teaching others increased, and (c) the number of subjects who selected 4-H as the top setting where they learned to teach others increased. Utilization of the experiential learning model was found to be an effective teaching technique.

Year of Submission

1994

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

School of Health, Physical Education, and Leisure Services

First Advisor

Carol Phillips

Second Advisor

Cathy Martinez

Third Advisor

Susan Koch

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

1994

Object Description

1 PDF file (100 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

Share

COinS