Effect of content area reading strategy on achievement in secondary agriscience

This study addressed improving agriscience students' comprehension by implementing content area reading strategies (CARS). Objectives included describing grade level, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status (SES), grade point average (GPA), and Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) reading levels of students, and describing variance in agriculture comprehension and motivation to read explained by these characteristics.;Hypotheses included students' (Ha1) comprehension of agricultural concepts and (Ha2) motivation to read will be significantly greater using CARS versus those using teacher's normal instruction. Questions leading qualitative inquiry included (1) how do agriculture teachers develop students' reading comprehension skills, (2) how do teachers implement CARS, and (3) what are the barriers to reading instruction?;Independent variables were CARS versus the teacher's normal instruction. Dependent variables were motivation to read and agriculture comprehension. Antecedent variables were gender, grade level, ethnicity, and SES. FCAT reading levels, GPA, and agriculture and motivation pre-tests were covariates.;A quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group design determined the effect of implementing CARS on agricultural comprehension and attitude toward reading of a purposively selected sample (n = 95) of secondary agriscience students, enrolled in Agriscience Foundations in Florida. The study compared CARS instruction with the teacher's normal instruction.;Over 60% of students read at the lowest two FCAT reading levels, while 11.6% read at the highest two levels. Students were generally lacking in motivation to read. Agriculture pre-test score, grade level, GPA, gender, ethnicity, and FLAT reading level predicted 65.0% of variance in agriculture post-test scores. Regression analysis did not produce a model that was statistically significant for motivation to read. GPA and FCAT reading level predicted 39.4% of variance in the comprehension portion post-test score. Because the treatment effect produced no significant correlations and was not significant in explaining the variance in any of the models, MANCOVA and ANCOVA procedures were not conducted.;Prior to the study, agriscience teachers implemented few or no CARS. They possessed limited knowledge and confidence in using CARS. Teachers in the comparison group implemented twice as many strategies, yet their students arrived at nearly the same level of agricultural comprehension and motivation as students in the treatment group.