Because teacher self-efficacy influences the retention of teachers, the researcher investigated teacher self-efficacy in agricultural education. The researcher sought to describe beginning agriculture teachers' perceived agricultural education teacher self-efficacy and teachers perceptions of the importance of job-related factors in their current position. Additionally, the researcher sought to describe the relationship among teachers demographic characteristics, their agricultural education teacher self-efficacy, and their intention to remain in the profession of agricultural education. An instrument specific to agricultural education was developed to answer the research questions. The instrument had three domains: classroom, FFA and SAE. The instrument was administered through both an internet based survey provider and mailed survey procedures.
Beginning teachers in this study all had less than four years of teaching experience. Almost all of the teachers intended to remain in the profession of agricultural education. Teachers reported favorable perceptions of their student teaching experience and their first year of teaching.
Teachers were the most efficacious in the classroom domain, and the least efficacious in the SAE domain. This finding indicates a need for additional professional development in the SAE domain. Beginning teachers in this study reported greater levels of importance than teacher self-efficacy in all three domains. Teachers indicated that the FFA domain was the most important of the three domains and the classroom domain was the least important. This finding indicates that a paradigm shift may be required amongst teachers. The SAE domain had the greatest discrepancy between importance and teachers self-efficacy, the classroom domain had the smallest discrepancy. This conclusion further substantiates the need for professional development in the SAE domain.
The teachers perceptions of their student teaching experience and their first year of teaching were positively related to their teacher self-efficacy. Males had higher teacher self-efficacy than females. Teachers who were not involved in high school agricultural education or FFA had lower teacher self-efficacy in the SAE and FFA domain, but higher teacher self-efficacy in the classroom domain. The researcher was unable to predict teacher retention as nearly all of the teachers indicated they intended to remain in the profession of agricultural education.