Efficacy of iCEV incorporation into a general animal science undergraduate classroom

Abstract Text: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of utilizing online media technology (iCEV;  CEV Multimedia, Ltd., Lubbock, TX) as opposed to a traditional textbook to enhance learning in a general animal science undergraduate course.  iCEV is an online media library of over 40,000 edited minutes of content specific to courses taught in agriculture and especially disciplines in animal science.  A customized playlist was created which was linked to the instructors' syllabus online.  The playlist allowed students to easily identify and view the segments required by the instructor prior to attending lecture in the classroom.  The instructor administered accountability quizzes at the beginning of the lecture period to ensure that students viewed the material.  The objective was to efficiently enhance learning through visual exposure to industries and experts across disciplines in animal science in order to engage students at a deeper level. The instructor developed a 16-item instrument to survey students after completion of the course.  A convenient sample of students (n=37) were asked to indicate their level of agreement with each statement by using a four point Likert-type scale (strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree).  Participation of subjects was voluntary and data was collected in confidentiality.  Descriptive statistics were generated with SPSS (IBM SPSS, Chicago, IL;  20,0 software).  Twenty percent of the respondents indicated they spent less than an hour weekly viewing iCEV, 52.5% spent one to two hours, 25.0% spent two to three hours, and 2.5% spent more than three hours.  Of the respondents, a total of 83.3% strongly agreed or agreed that viewing iCEV increased their interest in the animal science field of study and a total of 94.4% strongly agreed or agreed that viewing iCEV increased their awareness of career paths.  Seventy-five percent of the respondents either strongly agreed or agreed that they preferred learning from online media compared to learning from a textbook.  A total of 94.6% of the respondents indicated that they either strongly agreed or agreed that utilizing online media for course reference materials increased learning.  Collectively, it would appear that incorporation of iCEV in replacement of a traditional textbook in an undergraduate general animal science course was preferred by students to stimulate the learning process.

Keywords: online multimedia, iCEV, teaching