School-Based Agricultural Education provides students the opportunity to engage with new and emerging agricultural technologies. Employers value employability skills such as openness, preparedness, and adaptability. However, the Agricultural Education literature is limited on the preparation of students in these skills. We conducted a descriptive…

There is an ever-imminent need for career-ready graduates from collegiate agriculture programs. Generational shifts in attitudes and background experiences of agricultural students challenge educators to maintain curricular programming which establishes a successful career trajectory for students. Students studying animal science and/or…

The purpose of this action research study was to develop a rubric that identified levels of integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) lessons through agriculture, food, and natural resources (AFNR) lessons that were developed and implemented in afterschool programs by preservice informal educators. The research study…

Teacher self-efficacy impacts student achievement, job satisfaction, and teacher retention. Although the benefits of social support have been extensively studied in medicine and psychology, limited research has been completed in education to evaluate the ways in which social support contribute toward teacher self-efficacy. The purpose of this…

This study characterized perceptions of agricultural leadership programs in colleges of agriculture, food, life, human, or environmental sciences at 1,862 land-grant institutions. Objectives included describing the need for programs, studying evolution within the discipline, discussing faculty recommendations for future development, and examining…

Career development events develop career and life skills in youth, but limited work has been done to assess the motivation of students who participate in these events. The purpose of this study was to validate an instrument developed to measure youth motivation to participate in career development events. An instrument grounded in expectancy-value…

Exploratory discriminant analysis was used to determine the extent adult consumers' interest motivation to participate in a free educational dairy farm event and their beliefs of the dairy industry could correctly classify the respondents' predicted participation in a nonformal educational event. The most prominent conclusion of the study was that…

The establishment of the Future Farmers of America in 1928 and its subsequent growth in size and scope was noticed around the world. Agricultural education professionals from dozens of other countries wanted to know about the organization and how it helped motivate young rural boys to study vocational agriculture and choose agriculture as a career…

The USDA/NIFA has awarded funding to Land Grant Institutions to conduct and enhance the Hazardous Occupations Safety Training in Agriculture (HOSTA) program. The HOSTA program is designed to provide relevant educational opportunities in an effort to reduce the frequency and severity of farm-related injuries to all youth who work in agricultural…

Minimum passing scores for the Gearing Up for Safety: Production Agriculture Safety Training for Youth curriculum (Gearing Up for Safety) were set in 2006 with widely used and established procedures by efforts of subject matter experts (French, Breidenbach et al., 2007; French, Field, and Tormoehlen, 2006, 2007). While providing a research-based…

The purpose of this study was to investigate student perceptions toward factors influencing Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) participation. This descriptive study was conducted in 120 randomly selected agricultural education programs throughout four purposively selected states representative of the National FFA regions. Within each state…

The purpose of this study was to investigate student Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) knowledge and participation. This descriptive study was conducted in 120 randomly selected agricultural education programs throughout four purposively selected states representative of the National FFA regions. Students completed a questionnaire assessing…

In seven Indiana schools, fourth graders received hands-on instruction with incubators; seven schools were controls, with a total of 736 students and 39 teachers participating. The treatment group increased agriculture-related science knowledge. Students from communities smaller than 5,000 scored better than those in larger communities. (Contains…

In a survey of Indiana agriscience and business teachers (n=170), one-half reported their students receive science credit for agriscience and business courses; they felt prepared to teach integrated biological sciences; and integration required more preparation time. They needed appropriate equipment and adequate funding to support integration.…

Responses from Indiana 4-H tractor driving contestants 1982-197 (n=139) showed that 74% were employed on farms; most felt the contests effectively taught tractor safety and made them generally aware of safety. However, many still engaged in risky behaviors such as not wearing seatbelts in tractors with rollover protective structures or allowing…