Scholarship & Research
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Item The summer program of work of vocational agriculture instructors(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 1952) Fagan, Dick V.; Chairperson, Graduate Commitee: Leo L. Knuti.The purpose of this study was to determine procedures and time consumed in the different activities of the summer program of work by instructors of vocational agriculture. The study was designed to assist supervisors, administrators, teacher trainers, and experienced and beginning instructors in building a complete summer program of work for vocational agriculture. A questionnaire was sent out to 322 departments of vocational agriculture in eleven western states where the instructors had "been in their department for two years or longer. The departments were rated by the state supervisors into high, medium, and low groups as to the excellence of the supervised farming programs of students in these departments. Data was obtained on the amount of time that instructors spent on different areas in their summer program, A separate questionnaire was sent to all state supervisors to determine what types of reports they required from instructors of vocational agriculture. The study revealed that about 70 percent of the instructors in the high and low group prepared a written plan of activities they planned to carry on during the summer. Instructors in both the high and low groups spent about 20 percent of their time attending summer school. Teachers rated in the high group averaged $534.6l more annual salary than those in the low group, in the high group 20 percent more of the instructors visited their students during the summer than did those in the low group. Fifteen percent more of the instructors in the high group than in the low group had adult farmer classes during the summer,. In the low group 45 percent more of the departments had advisory committees than did those in the high group. Activities for improving the summer program of work are recommended. These include planning an effective summer program of work; visiting all students, and prospective students of agriculture during the summer! keeping the public informed of activities carried on by the department! and reporting monthly the activities carried on to the school administrators, school boards, and state supervisors of vocational agriculture, A form was devised for reporting the summer program of work which would be of help to instructors to keep the public informed of activities carried on during the summer.Item An examination of agricultural education pre-service student teachers' explanatory style, beliefs and expectations about teaching, and Strengths Finder profiles(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2004) Cooper, Katie Logan; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Martin J. Frick.The purpose of this study was to examine levels of optimism and pessimism along with the beliefs and expectations of teaching in agricultural education pre-service teachers, and to compare these findings to that of the Gallup Organization's StrengthsFinder® profiles. The states included in this study were Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. The data for this study was collected using web based survey instruments. The population consisted of 61 pre-service agricultural education students. These students were enrolled in an agricultural education teaching methods class during the Fall 2002 semester, and planned on student teaching in a high school agricultural education program during the Spring or Fall 2003 semesters. A demographic survey, the Beliefs and Expectations about the First Year of Teaching, and the Academic Attributional Style Questionnaire (AASQ) were posted on a web site. The StrengthsFinder® instrument was used by providing each respondent a copy of the book, Now, Discover Your Strengths (Buckingham and Clifton, 2001) and was found at a Gallup organization web site. Overall, respondents believed that they will perform better at the teaching tasks as outlined in the Beliefs and Expectations about the First Year of Teaching than their peers. Only three respondents were excessively pessimistic and only five respondents were overly optimistic as reported by the results of the AASQ. The top five first strengths on the StrengthsFinder® profile as reported by the respondents were: "Adaptability", "Input", "Achiever", "Learner" and "Developer". Collectively, when the respondents were examined by looking at all three questionnaires, no overly pessimistic theme strengths were identified as measured by the AASQ and the Beliefs and Expectations surveys. A regression analysis, using a step-wise method was conducted. Only one independent variable, "scholarship" had a significant influence on the AASQ scores. StrengthsFinder® themes "Intellection", "Relator", and "Woo" were identified as being overly optimistic, as measured by the AASQ. All groups felt that they would perform better than their peers at the teaching tasks presented by the Beliefs and Expecations instrument except the StrengthsFinder® theme "Restorative". This group scored a 0.00, meaning the respondents think they will perform the same as their peers.