Identifying Concerns of Preservice and In–service Teachers in Agricultural Education

Abstract

Teacher educators have the task of identifying skills most needed by pre–service teachers and in–service teachers. The purpose of this study was to describe teacher concerns over different stages of teacher development. A three–part instrument consisting of a teacher concerns statement, a Likert–type scale of concerns and demographic data was given to three groups. The groups consisted of early career teacher education students (N = 40), advanced teacher education students (N = 15), and teachers who had completed their first year of teaching and were just beginning their second year (N = 22). The results of this study indicate concern levels do change over time and there is a distinct shift in both the level and type of concerns across these three groups. This shift may allow for agricultural education courses and in–service programming to be more uniquely designed to address the specific needs and concerns of our educational clientele.