Inservice needs of selected Arkansas agriculture teachers related to precision agriculture

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine selected Arkansas school-based agricultural education (SBAE) teachers’ perceptions of the importance, ability to teach, inservice needs, and barriers relative to incorporating precision agriculture (PA) into their programs. A non-probability sample (n = 44) of teachers participating in an introductory PA workshop completed the survey. Teachers rated each of the PA competencies as being above average or high importance but rated their ability to teach each competency as being none or below average. When competencies were grouped into seven PA topics, teachers had inservice needs for each topic with mean weighted discrepancy scores (MWDSs) ranging from 8.16 (guidance and autosteering systems) to 11.81 (geographic information systems). Years teaching experience, row-crop experience, and experience with PA had negligible to substantial negative correlations with inservice needs in each PA topic. A majority of teachers rated the lack of equipment (86.3%), curriculum materials (84.1%), personal knowledge (81.9%), and inservice opportunities (63.7%) as being either moderate or serious barriers to incorporating PA into their programs. These results indicated a perceived need for inservice education in PA, provided insight into priority topics, and identified potential barriers to incorporating PA into the curriculum.