Louisiana Secondary Agricultural Educators’ Perceptions of an International Experience toward Their Teaching Career

Abstract

As societies across the globe are becoming interdependent, it is becoming increasingly essential for secondary agricultural educators to integrate an international component into the agricultural curriculum. The purpose of this study was to evaluate secondary agricultural educators’ perceptions of participating in an international experience (IE) toward their teaching career. This study showed that more than three-fourths of secondary agricultural educators perceived participation in an IE to be beneficial to their careers, and nearly three-fourths perceived participation to be relevant to their careers. It is concluded that secondary agricultural educators perceive minor barriers to participation in an IE. In addition, secondary agricultural educators who perceive participation in an IE to be beneficial and relevant to their careers also perceive locations to be more appealing and activities to be more important than those who do not. Further, secondary agricultural educators who perceive participation in an IE to be relevant to their career perceived fewer barriers to participation in an IE. However, there were no statistically significant differences between perceived barriers of secondary agricultural educators who perceive participation in an IE to be beneficial to their career and those who do not perceive participation to be beneficial to their career.