Exploring Student Perceptions of an Interactive Virtual Tour of an Agricultural Facility

Over the past three decades, virtual tours have been used in many contexts. In educational settings, virtual tours have been used to replace on-site field trips, which can be difficult to execute due to a variety of logistical concerns. While virtual tours are widely used, there is limited research pertaining to their use in food and agricultural industry locations. To address this gap and gather student input, this research explored students' perspectives of virtual tours in an agricultural educational context. Specifically, this study sought to explore learners' perceptions of a virtual tour to learn about the cotton ginning process. Guided by the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the research employed a convergent parallel mixed methods design. Student scores were collected quantitatively on four TAM constructs, while qualitative insights from focus group discussions were collected to elucidate the quantitative data. Results indicated positive student perceptions of IVTs as learning tools but emphasized their inability to fully replace traditional field trips. Participants found it easy to navigate the virtual tour and appreciated the variety of content types – videos, photos, and text. They suggested additional agricultural contexts where virtual tours would be informative. These findings contribute valuable insights for researchers exploring IVT usage in agricultural education and provide guidance for virtual tour creators, informed by student feedback. Additional research should collect insights from instructors regarding the use of these educational tours in their courses.