Factors Influencing Preservice Teachers' Decisions to Major in Agriscience Education

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to acquire information that could assist the Department of Agricultural Communication, Education, and Leadership in developing materials and targeting audiences to assist in addressing the shortage of agricultural science teachers across Ohio. The objective was to describe factors influencing students to choose Agriscience Education as a major in college. In this study, a census (N = 19) of the students participating in the 2017 Preservice Teacher Professional Block Program at The Ohio State University completed a questionnaire describing factors influencing their decision to choose Agriscience Education as a college major. The research questionnaire was distributed to all students with 100% participation. The questionnaire was comprised of a 5-point Likert scale, from strongly disagree to strongly agree, measuring factors such as desire to work with students, influence from parents, past agricultural teachers, friends, and their own experiences in agricultural organizations such as FFA and 4-H. From the data, the top factors influencing students to enter the major included: their experience with traditional agricultural student organizations (i.e. 4-H, FFA), the opportunity to teach students, the opportunity to educate the public about agriculture, and the chance to teach a community about many aspects of agriculture. Conclusions from the data included putting emphasis on FFA events and other agricultural related organizations' events that encourage members to use their strengths in scenarios dealing with educating the public. Specifically, educating the public about agriculturally-related concepts was important. Implications include encouraging students to be involved with events, so that more students may be interested in entering the agricultural education program and therefore, becoming agricultural science educators.