The Usefulness of a Crop Scouting Project in an Undergraduate Agronomy Course.

A crop scouting project in an undergraduate agronomy course was investigated to ascertain student perceptions. Sixty-three students enrolled in AGR 305 (Crop Growth and Development) at Illinois State University (Spring 2015 semester) were surveyed after the completion of a crop scouting project. A three-page handout was given to the students at the beginning of the semester detailing the requirements of the project. Each student group (comprised of 4 students; at least one student with production farm background) scouted a wheat field at the University Farm and generated a report containing the required items in the handout. A one-page survey was administered to students (IRB Approval Number 2015-0188, Illinois State University) after the completion of the crop scouting project in May 2015. Fifty-eight of the 63 students chose to participate in the survey. For 38% of the surveyed students, this project was their first experience in crop scouting an actual production field. The Likert scale (1 to 5, with 1 = strongly agree and 5 = strongly disagree) was used to gauge student feedback to a series of short questions. Students perceived a benefit to learning from completing the crop scouting project (45 out of 58 students selected strongly agree or agree), and would recommend the instructor continue to use the crop scouting project (50 students strongly agreed or agreed out of 58 students). Overall, the crop scouting project had a positive influence on student learning in an upper level undergraduate agronomy course.