Collaborating Students as Caretakers for Maintaining a University Farm for Teaching in Rabbit Farming

Abstract

The viability of maintaining a farm for teaching in Rabbit Farming at the Faculty of Agriculture (University of Seville, Spain) using collaborating students and the collaborating students’ perception of the educational usefulness of the activity were analysed. The collaborating students, organised into groups of three, spent 1.55±1.04 h day-1 in cleaning, feeding and taking care of the rabbits. They regarded the activity as being quite easy (mean±SD = 2.44±2.50, where 10 = extremely difficult) and compatible (9.19±1.10, where 10 = totally compatible) with their other academic activities. The coordination between the collaborating students within each group was high (8.53±2.14 with 10 = totally coordinated). Most of them (85.3%) opined that a group of three people was an appropriate size for the working subgroups. The degree of the collaborating students’ independence with regard to the professors in undertaking their tasks was noteworthy (7.82±2.14 where 10 = totally independent). The collaborating students regarded the activity as highly useful (7.57±2.20 where 10 = very useful) for acquiring skills in animal production. Overall collaborating student satisfaction with the activity was high (9.18±1.71, where 10 = completely satisfactory). Maintaining a teaching farm using collaborating students is viable since they perform their tasks efficiently and regarded the activity as highly useful for acquiring skills in animal science.