Variable Relationships Affecting Agriscience Teachers’ Stages of Concern for Content Area Reading Strategies

Abstract

In spite of national initiatives such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, American students continue to be struggling readers. Research on content area reading strategies (CARS) has shown that such strategies increase students’ ability to read and comprehend text. The purpose of this research was to assess agricultural educators’ implementation of content area reading strategies in their classroom. A tailoreddesign, web-based questionnaire was distributed to 371 Florida agriscience educators to complete this descriptive, census survey. The results indicated the total number of hours of CARS professional development was not related to progression through the stages of concern. This study also underscored the lack of consistency in the professional development programs these teachers completed. In order to better understand the differences of the professional development programs, research should be conducted to determine the characteristics of various CARS professional development programs. Practitioners should provide a consistent, in depth professional development program to provide ongoing training and support throughout a several year process.