Conceptualizing high-impact practices within the frame of agricultural leadership education: A content analysis

Abstract

The use of high-impact practices in undergraduate leadership courses is a common and effective way of developing students studying agriculture. However, each of the ten high-impact practices (HIPs) recognized by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (Kuh, 2008) are not equally studied or utilized by leadership educators. This study will provide a content analysis of the use of HIPs as a leadership pedagogy in undergraduate education. In the studies analyzed, which were grouped by categories of HIPs, only five of the ten main HIPs were represented. These were undergraduate research, diversity and global learning, internships, service learning, and capstone courses and projects. The analysis revealed each HIP resulted in one or more of Kuh’s (2008) proposed learning outcomes. Based on these findings, the researchers suggest HIPs be used more frequently in agricultural leadership curriculum and call on scholars to study the ten HIPs more closely.

Keywords

• internships
• undergraduate research
• global learning
• community-based learning
• service learning