Community Partners for Healthy Farming Intervention Research

Funding Period: 1999-2003

States involved in project: Indiana

The primary goal of this project will be to evaluate the effectiveness of interactive CD-ROM multimedia and interactive multimedia World Wide Web (WWW) programs to teach critical agricultural safety and health topics to youth in community-based settings. The selected teaching strategies will be evaluated for their effectiveness in developing beliefs, skills, and behaviors related specifically to the safe operation of agricultural tractors and machinery. The project will build upon over ten years of experience by the staff at Purdue, to incorporate innovative, electronic-based educational strategies into agricultural safety and health curricula.

The following broad objectives have been established:

1. Develop a community-based educational curriculum based on Iowa State University's tractor and machinery safety manual, "Safe Operation of Agricultural Equipment", to be covered in each of the two proposed teaching strategies: computer-based CD-ROM multimedia version, and computer-based World Wide Web (WWW) multimedia version.
2. Evaluate the effectiveness of these community-based, curricula/teaching strategies at improving attitudes, behaviors, knowledge, and safety practices of youth concerning safety and health issues related to tractor and machinery operation.
3. Disseminate, as widely as possible, the final product and strategies for incorporation into existing youth safety programs.

The specific goal and objectives cited above will enable this project to provide the following benefits:

1. Provide additional evidence to verify the educational benefits/disadvantages of using electronic technology to teach agricultural safety and health topics to youth.
2. Develop and evaluate new innovative educational strategies for teaching agricultural tractor and machinery safety that will be delivered using computer and distance learning technology.
3. Enhance the quality of educational training materials being used by the federally-mandated tractor and machinery safety certification program. The current materials are revised versions of materials originally developed over 30 years ago, and as such, use educational methodology that is no longer current, or incorporate "recent" findings concerning the effectiveness of computer-aided instruction. The new materials will involve the user in the learning process through interactive, educational, hands-on activities.
4. The new, interactive educational materials will be developed so that youth can learn in a self-directed, independent setting. Two major benefits with this approach are that there is less need (if any) for a qualified instructor and, secondly, an individual youth can complete the training at home at his or her convenience, without having to wait for a "critical mass" of youth to enroll.
5. High quality educational materials on tractor and machinery safety will be developed for use in other educational settings, such as the non-certification-based 4-H tractor program, and high school agricultural education classes.
6. Farm parents/guardians will have an educational tool that would aid them in teaching tractor and machinery safety to their children, most of whom are not required to enroll in a formal tractor and machinery safety educational program.
7. The materials may be useful in teaching tractor and machinery safety and health to adults with limited literary skills.
8. The activities associated with the project will result in additional graduate level training for individuals pursuing careers in the field of agricultural safety and health.

NOTE: This document is provided for historical purposes only.