Study Published on Enhancing the Undergraduate Extension Education Minor

Several faculty members of the Department of Agricultural and Human Sciences, along with student assistant Rose Vaughan, collaborated to co-authored an article on the extension education minor. This three-year study was an initiative to enhance the undergraduate Extension Education minor at NC State University. The article appears in the Journal of Human Sciences and Extension.

Extension education trends and research needs: Views from professionals and faculty.

Authors: Joseph L. Donaldson, Wendy Warner, Jacklyn Bruce, Joy Morgan, Harriett Coleman Edwards, and Rose Vaughan

Abstract

This paper reports on a three-year initiative to enhance the undergraduate Extension Education minor at a state land-grant university. Specific initiatives to improve the undergraduate Extension Education minor curriculum involved (a) revising the Extension Education minor due to varied curriculum and faculty changes and (b) aligning eight Extension Education courses’ units of study with Extension professional competency domains. The described processes helped understand the Extension Education curriculum by mapping competency domains and showing which domains were and were not taught in the eight courses. A key recommendation is to incorporate the alignment of Extension Education curriculum and Extension professional competencies into the Extension summer internship program, among other uses. Furthermore, it is recommended that faculty engage in a similar effort to map college curricula to professional competencies to ensure that academic minors have a clear purpose in preparing students for careers.

https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1437&context=jhse