Early-Career Georgia Agriculture Teachers’ Agricultural Mechanics Professional Development Needs
Keywords:
Agricultural Mechanics, Professional Development, Early-Career Teachers, School-Based Agricultural Education, Teacher Education, Human Capital Theory, Needs AssessmentAbstract
Agricultural mechanics is a prominent agricultural subject matter area in many agricultural education programs throughout Georgia. Hainline and Wells (2024) indicated that early-career agriculture teachers often have different agricultural mechanics professional development (PD) needs than their more-experienced colleagues. Hence, our study focused on early-career agriculture teachers. We used human capital theory (HCT) to theoretically underpin our study. To conduct our study, we used a valid and reliable research instrument that contained eight demographics items and 65 agricultural mechanics items. Wells and Hainline (2021) previously used this instrument to conduct their national-level study of agriculture teachers’ agricultural mechanics PD needs. We distributed this instrument via e-mail to 253 early-career agriculture teachers throughout Georgia; however, only 243 emails delivered successfully. Seventy-six teachers provided usable data, yielding a 31.3% response rate. Using mean weighted discrepancy scores (MWDS), we found that the greatest PD needs among early-career Georgia agriculture teachers were: (1) American Welding Society (AWS) standards for welding procedures, (2) Procedures for structural welding, and (3) Principles of metallurgy (ex. identifying metals, proper use of metals, etc.). We recommend that Georgia agricultural education stakeholders use our findings to structure PD sessions that address early-career Georgia agriculture teachers’ greatest agricultural mechanics PD needs. We advise that scholars should engage with mid- and late-career Georgia agriculture teachers to examine their agricultural mechanics PD needs as well.
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