Perceptions And Practices Of Georgia Guidance Counselors Regarding Agricultural Education Programs

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the perceptions and attitudes of counselors toward high school agriculture programs in the state of Georgia. All 170 high school counselors with high school agriculture program in the state of Georgia served as the population for the study. A mail questionnaire was developed by the researchers from the review of literature. As a group, the counselors were positive about the benefits of Agricultural Education. They seemed to feel that agriculture teachers had a positive professional working relationship with colleagues. Although they were "undecided" about the quality of the local program and about offering academic credit for agriculture, the counselors were varied in their opinions. Correlations indicated that those who perceived the local programs as being quality programs, supported the idea of science credit and the course content as being valuable to college bound students. The same conclusion may be reached in regard to the practices of the counselors regarding the Agricultural Education program. Those who perceived quality in the courses were more likely to place students into the program regardless of the student's future work or college plans. As a group, the counselors appeared to be uninformed about the programs offered in Agricultural Education.