Exploring Student Perspectives of Interactive Virtual Tours in an Agricultural Education Context

Virtual tours have been used in many contexts during the last three decades. The COVID-19 pandemic increased the use of virtual tours as a way to fill the void many people felt being unable to travel as they wished. Prior to this, virtual tours were used extensively in the classroom by K-12 and higher education instructors to replace on-site field trips. Field trips are a common way for educators to facilitate experiential learning but are often difficult to execute due to a variety of logistical concerns. Interactive virtual tours (IVT) are a type of virtual tour that integrate a variety of content delivery methods and curriculum pieces to make the virtual tour mirror an actual tour as closely as possible. In the current study, undergraduate students’ perceptions of an IVT of a cotton gin were collected. While virtual tours are widely used, there is limited research pertaining to the use of virtual tours in an agricultural education context. To bridge the gap in research and gather valuable student input, the purpose of this research was to explore students' perspectives of virtual tours in an agricultural educational context. Specifically, this study sought to explore learners' perceptions of a virtual tour to learn about the cotton ginning process. With the Technology Acceptance Model as a theoretical guide, this research utilized a convergent parallel mixed methods design to quantitatively collect student scores on perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, perceived ease of use, and intention to adopt virtual tours. Focus group discussions collected rich qualitative data, which was then used to elucidate the results from the quantitative data collection. The results of this study indicated that students have positive perceptions of using IVTs as a learning tool; however, they are not a replacement to traditional field trip experiences. The findings of this study can be used to further inform researchers about the use of IVTs in an agricultural education context, as well as provide insight for the creators of future virtual tours on what students liked and did not like.

Author dc:creator

• Harlan, Kylie

Contributors dc:contributor

• Fischer, Laura
• Kennedy, Lindsay
• Meyers, Courtney

• Food and Agricultural Sciences
• Agricultural Education
• Interactive Virtual Tours
• Virtual Tours in Education
• Mixed Methods Study
• Student Perspectives

Statement dc:rights

• Access is not restricted.

Language dc:language

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2346/96376

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:tdl-ir.tdl.org:2346/96376