Are Teachers Ready to Integrate Science Concepts into Secondary Agriculture Programs?

Abstract

For the past two decades, the idea of integrating more science concepts into the secondary agriculture curriculum has gained support. The purpose of this study was to assess the confidence and competence of agriculture instructors to teach concepts related to science. The sample was derived from the population of agriculture instructors teaching in secondary schools of a selected Missouri. For this descriptive research, an instrument was developed to assess the instructors' perceived level of competence to teach selected grade level expectations (GLE) for science in grades 9 to 11. A second instrument, obtained from the American Board for Certification in Teacher Excellence, was used to assess the general biological science knowledge of the teachers. Agriculture instructors perceive that they are competent to teach nearly all of the selected concepts associated with the selected GLE. On the other hand, less than 10% of the teachers scored high enough on the examination to indicate proficient knowledge of biological science, raising questions regarding their competence to teach this subject matter.