Investigation of professional status of Alabama home economics education graduates, 1977-1978 through 1986-198

The purpose of this study was to investigate the professional status of the home economics education graduates from Alabama institutions of higher education during the period 1978-87. Following a literature review, a questionnaire was developed, tested in a pilot study, and evaluated by a panel of experts to determine content validity. The questionnaire was sent to the 401 Alabama home economics education graduates from the years 1977-78 through 1986-87 with a response rate of 57.8% from the 294 deliverable. The findings were as follows: (1) It appears that there seems to be an oversupply of home economic teachers in Alabama. (2) It appears that most of the graduates found employment either in home economics education or related fields. (3) The majority of the graduates felt that their undergraduate studies prepared them to teach all subject matter areas of home economics except consumer education and computers in home and personal management. An overwhelming majority of the graduates felt prepared to teach many of the controversial topics found in the home economics curriculum today regardless of whether they had studied it. (4) There is a slight trend in increased enrollment in high school home economics programs, the number of teaching positions in these programs, and the number of teachers retiring. There appears to be a slight decrease in the number of new graduates from home economics education programs. (5) The major reasons for preparing to teach then never teaching were lack of jobs available near home and family and unsatisfactory working conditions. (6) The major reasons for leaving the teaching profession were family responsibilities or the family moved. (7) The majority of the graduates preferred to do nothing to keep abreast of the current issues in home economics. (8) According to these findings, home economics education programs should begin to recruit students to enroll in home economics education in order to supply the projected demand for home economics teachers. Recommendations include a charge to home economics programs in Alabama institutions of higher education to place more emphasis on consumer education and computers in home and personal management.