An Assessment of the Needs of Young Farmer Teachers in Georgia

Abstract

Georgia Young Farmer teachers and their needs have never been researched in a formal fashion. To better understand these individuals and strengthen the program that is decreasing in numbers throughout the United States, the general design of this research was a descriptive survey, allowing the 51 Georgia Young Farmer teachers to enter categorical as well as continuous data on a questionnaire(Georgia Agriculture Education Department, 2010; H. Thompson, personal communication, June 20, 2010). The questionnaire consisted of four sections as follows: general information, professional needs, technical needs, and general needs. The average Georgia Young Farmer Teachers is male, over 45 years of age, and married with two children. They attained a Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree through the University of Georgiaand have less than ten years of experience teaching Young Farmers. The majority of Young Farmer Teachers are located within the southern one-third of the state and teach one in-school Agriculture Education course per day. These teachers ranked internet websites, agribusiness representatives, and other specialists as their top resources. They are more active on the local and state levels versus the national level. Three of the top nine most critical needs for the teachers were within the area of agribusiness followed closely by livestock and row-crop production. The general needs of motivating adults, public relations and fundraising were also within the top nine. Teachers also revealed a need in improved support from professional development, local and state boards of education, the Teacher Retirement System and the University of Georgia.