143 Benefits and Values of the Master Gardener Program

Abstract

Current and former Missouri Master Gardeners were asked to respond how strongly they agreed or disagreed with a list of benefits provided by the Master Gardener program. The survey instrument was an adaptation of Rohs and Westerfield's (1996) Master Gardener Societal and Personal Benefits survey. Questions were assigned to one of the six principal components of volunteer motivation developed by Clary et al. (1998): Understanding, Values, Enhancement, Social, Protective, and Career. Master Gardeners who are currently active volunteers in the program were more likely to respond favorably to many of the benefits provided by the Master Gardener program. Respondents most strongly indicated their agreement that the Master Gardener program, more than any other similar organization, provides benefits related to new learning experiences, exercising knowledge, skills, and abilities, categorized as understanding (U). The overall mean for U was 4.35 on the 5-point Likert scale, a significantly higher score than any other category according to Duncan's multiple range test. Benefits related to personal growth and self-esteem, labeled enhancement (E); those related to altruism and humanitarian concern, labeled values (V); and guilt reduction over being more fortunate than others and addressing one's own personal problems, labeled protective (P), formed the second tier of benefit importance. Benefits related to preparation for a new career or maintaining career-relevant skills, categorized as career (C) were next. Benefits concerning relationships with others, classified as social (S), concluded the list.