Agricultural knowledge and perceptions of eleventh-grade students in out-state Missouri schools

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to assess the knowledge about and perception towards agriculture of 11th grade students in small out-state Missouri schools with and without an identifiable secondary agriculture program.;Procedure. Responses were received from 551 students from 19 Missouri school districts. The instrument used was the Agricultural Awareness Survey. Reliability estimates were calculated for the knowledge (.809) and perception (.843) scales. A two-way multivariate analysis of variance procedure was used to test null hypotheses one and two. Analysis of variance was then used to determine which variables were significantly different. Hypotheses three and four were tested using a linear multiple regression procedure.;Findings. A significant (r =.174) relationship was found between the agricultural knowledge and agricultural perception scores. A significant difference was found between the mean scores for knowledge of students taking agriculture in schools with an agriculture program and students not enrolled in agriculture in these schools and students enrolled in schools not having an agriculture program. A significant difference was found between the mean scores of perception towards agriculture between students who had or were enrolled in agriculture and students with no agricultural education. A regression analysis indicated that a small but significant amount of variance in the mean scores of knowledge about agriculture (;Conclusions. (a) Students enrolled in an agriculture program will increase in basic knowledge about agriculture. (b) Students enrolled in agriculture courses will have a more positive perception towards agriculture. (c) A weak positive relationship exists between knowledge about and perception towards agriculture.