Filling the Gap: Factors Influencing Individuals with No School-based Agricultural Education Background to Enter the Profession

Abstract

Teacher recruitment and retention in the United States has been deemed an issue across all disciplines and grade-levels.  School-based agricultural education (SBAE) is no exception to this issue, where for decades a national shortage of qualified agriculture teachers has persisted.  According to the 2021 [STATE] Agriculture Education Annual Report, there were 84 open SBAE teaching positions in 2020 with only 36 graduates from university agricultural education teacher preparation programs.  This lack of qualified teachers has forced many [STATE] SBAE programs to either hire provisional teachers or shut down completely.  The purpose of our qualitative study was to examine factors that influenced current SBAE teachers with no SBAE background to major in and pursue a career in the agricultural education profession.  Using a phenomenological approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with current SBAE teachers that never participated in a SBAE program.  Open coding was used to reveal themes based on the research objectives and interview questions.  Common themes revealed influences including possessing an agricultural background, taking agriculture coursework in college, growing up in a family of teachers, and having the career suggested to them.  Findings from this research will be useful in developing agriculture teacher recruitment and retention plans with the goal of narrowing the employment gap that has developed from the shortage of qualified SBAE teachers.