Describing Cognitive Level of Teacher Discourse, and Student Retention of Content, during a Secondary Agricultural Science Unit of Instruction

The purpose of this research was twofold: to describe the cognitive level of teacher discourse in secondary agricultural education classrooms, and to describe student retention of content from both the perspective of cognitive level of content delivery and cognitive level of content assessment.;Research questions of the study included: 1. What cognitive level of discourse do teachers exhibit in secondary agricultural science classrooms? 2. At what rate are students retaining content in secondary agricultural science classrooms, at the immediate and short-term intervals? 3. What patterns exist between teacher cognitive discourse and student retention of content in secondary agricultural science classrooms?;Two secondary agricultural science teachers were videotaped during one week's classes. Instruments were used to determine cognitive level of teacher discourse, and cognitive level of student retention. Patterns were examined.;Results were used to show that teacher's discourse was at the lowest levels of cognition 68 percent of the class time for one teacher, and 79 percent of the class time for the other teacher. Additionally, student content retention scores were highest on lower cognitive level questions on the post1, and post2 tests.;It was concluded that students retained content during the 49-day observation, and that retention rates were highest at the levels of cognition in which the class sessions were taught. A pattern began to emerge in which students retained the same cognitive level of questions on the post1 and post2 as the cognitive level of discourse that was delivered by the teacher. Content, therefore, was being retained at the same levels at which the content was taught.;Recommendations included teachers writing assessments at the levels of cognition they wish their students to perform, and to align those assessments with classroom discourse. A second recommendation was for teachers to clearly state the goals for a unit of instruction and continue to check student progress along those goals during the unit. Further recommendations included teacher educators preparing pre-service teachers for teaching across levels of cognition.