Beginning Agricultural Education Instructor Perceived Benefit of Professional Development Experiences

Agricultural education instructors in the first through fifth years of experience benefit from professional development experiences tailored to individual needs. Professional development is one way we can support beginning agricultural education teachers through increasing their confidence and reducing the attrition rate and burnout. This quantitative study was guided by Mezirow’s transformative learning theory, which frames learning in adulthood as a transformative, as opposed to a functional, process. The purpose of this study was to identify the extent to which differences in the perceived positive benefit of professional development experiences of beginning agricultural education instructors can be explained by differences in gender and CASE certification. The researchers distributed an instrument to the target population and collected usable responses from 126 beginning agricultural education teachers from four Midwestern states. The most impactful professional development opportunities identified by beginning agricultural education instructors were CASE institutes and student teaching feedback. An Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) procedure was utilized to identify if any significant differences in professional development preferences can be explained by gender, CASE certification, or the interaction of gender and CASE certification, but there were no significant differences found. Based on the findings of this study, future research should seek to determine beginning teachers’ motivation for taking advantage of professional development experiences and seek to determine how beginning teachers determine the impact of various professional development experiences on their careers.