Strategic Use of Audience Response Systems for Extension Programming Impact Evaluation

Audience response systems (ARS) are an increasingly popular tool used to deliver curricula and educational content across diverse, heterogeneous audiences while providing instant data on learner understanding. Given the increasing pressure to assess Cooperative Extension Service (CES) program impact on audiences across a widening scope of demographics, geography, agricultural experience, and education with limited time and human resources, ARS may offer a viable solution. In this paper, audience responses from a targeted Extension program reaching 204 agricultural producers are presented. Improved strategies for ARS applications in Extension program assessment are suggested.