THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SELECTED TEACHER PRESAGE VARIABLES AND SUPERVISED OCCUPATIONAL EXPERIENCE QUALITY IN VOCATIONAL HORTICULTURE PROGRAMS IN OHIO

The purposes of this study were to investigate the relationship between the quality of supervised occupational experience (SOE) in horticulture and the teacher's attitude toward SOE and to describe the status of selected teaching practices in SOE in horticulture in Ohio. Hypotheses were that the quality of SOE in horticulture and the teacher's attitude were positively related and that much of the variance in SOE quality can be explained by teacher's attitude.;The population was vocational horticulture teachers in Ohio in the 1984-85 school year with one or more years of teaching experience. On the 54-item data collection instrument, items 1-36 measured teacher attitude, perception of SOE knowledge, and perception of administrator support; 37-50 assessed the status of selected teaching practices in SOE in Ohio; and 51-54 solicited demographic information on teachers. Eighty-four of the 90 teachers returned usable questionnaires.;Findings. Teacher characteristics included the following: horticulture teachers were experienced, were likely to be certified by other than a B.S. degree with an agricultural education major, and were unlikely to have had vocational agriculture or conducted an SOEP in high school. Teachers' attitudes and perceptions of administrator support were positive, but perceptions of administrator support for SOE were only slightly positive. Measures of association between SOE quality and the seven teacher presage variables were negligible or low; these variables were concluded to be poor predictors of SOE quality. The outcomes of selected SOE teaching practices were positive, but negligible or low measures of association led to the conclusion that these, too, were poor predictors of SOE quality. Calculations of indices of predictive efficiency for the relationships between SOE quality and teacher presage variables showed that little or no variance could be explained in the dependent measure. On this basis, the hypotheses of the study were not tested.;An ex post facto research design was used. The main independent variable (teacher's attitude toward SOE) and six independent variables were investigated in relation to SOE quality, the dependent variable.