Predicting School-Based Agricultural Education Teacher Engagement in Promoting Agricultural Education Teaching as a Career
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5032/jae.v67i4.3427Keywords:
Career Promotion, Teaching Careers, Agriculture Teaching, Student Career ChoiceAbstract
Teacher shortages continue to be a challenge for school-based agricultural education programs, emphasizing the need to understand factors that influence teachers’ engagement in career promotion activities. Guided by the theory of planned behavior, the purpose of this study was to predict factors influencing the frequency of engagement in career promotion among agricultural educators. The results of a multi-state descriptive survey were used to identify relational factors and analyze them as predictors of career promotion engagement. Self-efficacy across all aspects of the three-circle model of agricultural education was significantly related to engagement. Importance of career promotion activities and self-efficacy in FFA/leadership development/SAE were significant predictors of engagement in career promotion activities. Based on these findings, teachers’ confidence in career-related duties and reinforcement of the importance of career promotion should be strengthened to increase advocacy behaviors supporting the recruitment of future agricultural educators. Future research should explore barriers to career promotion and identify additional predictors to explain the variance in engagement behaviors.
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