| The purpose of this study was to determine the livestock skills possessed by current and prospective Ohio agricultural production teachers and to examine the extent to which livestock skills were taught in high school vocational agriculture classes. One target population included Ohio agricultural production teachers employed during the 1981-82 year. The second population consisted of all agricultural education majors who were seeking certification as an agricultural production teacher. Simple random samples of 100 current teachers and 60 prospective teachers were drawn. A total of 61 skills pertaining to swine, beef, dairy, sheep, and poultry production were contained on the mail questionnaire.;For each skill, an average of nearly 50 percent of the current teachers indicated the skill was not taught. A large majority of those teachers who taught the skills did so via discussion methods. Prospective teachers who owned, worked, or were reared on a livestock farm and who completed more livestock production courses and high school vocational agriculture tended to report higher performance levels. Current teachers having higher performance levels tended to have been reared on a livestock farm, currently own or work on a livestock farm, be responsible for supervising a school livestock farm, and have more years of agriculture teaching experience. In all cases, livestock skill performance level was found to be very strongly related to confidence in demonstrating the skill.;Results indicated that a majority of both current and prospective teachers had only read about or seen the skills performed and had never actually performed the skills themselves. Overall, prospective and current teachers reported medium levels of confidence in their ability to demonstrate the skills. The home farm was the major source of skill acquisition reported by both current and prospective teachers. However, current teachers reported that poultry and sheep skills were primarily learned while teaching agriculture. For each skill, only about one-third of the prospective teachers and current teachers reported they had actually performed the skill. |
