Early-career agricultural science teachers’ preparation, practice, and perceptions of instructional methods

The purpose of this study was to determine early career teachers’ preparation in, use of, and perceptions of various instructional methods in agricultural education. Training received in instructional methods, time spent using instructional methods, confidence using instructional methods, and perceived effectiveness of instructional methods were all examined. This study was descriptive in nature and used a sample of agricultural science teachers in Texas that had completed one, two, or three years of teaching at the start of the 2017-2018 school year. Participants responded to an online survey using the Qualtrics™ system. The survey was made up of five sections and had a total of 44 items. A response rate of 37.5% was achieved (n = 114). Two-thirds of the participants of this study reported receiving some kind of training in all 10 of the identified instructional methods through their certification program. Cooperative learning (M = 37.56, SD = 24.38), demonstration (M = 32.83, SD = 26.94), and lecture (M = 32.70, SD = 26.66) emerged as the most frequently used instructional methods while field trips (M = 14.82, SD = 20.83), role-play (M = 14.73, SD = 20.90), and guest speakers (M = 12.01, SD = 17.95) were reported as the least used instructional methods. Participants reported high confidence in using demonstration (M = 4.15, SD = 0.74) and cooperative learning (M = 4.00, SD = 0.79) and low confidence using the role-play instructional method (M = 2.86, SD = 1.14). Demonstration (M = 4.34, SD = 0.69) and cooperative learning (M = 4.06, SD = 0.78) were identified as effective instructional methods while all others were reported as moderately effective instructional methods.