| Purpose. The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship of selected factors to students' decision relative to enrollment in vocational agriculture in Missouri secondary schools.;Conclusions. (1) Vocational agriculture teachers and others involved in developing and promoting vocational agriculture should focus their efforts on attracting secondary students as early as their first year of junior high school. (2) Students enrolled in vocational agriculture are different from those not enrolled in vocational agriculture, in terms of the four factors considered (personal, economic/job related factors, interest and attitude, and educational objectives). Recognizing that this difference was due largely to differences in interest and attitude, greater use should be made of interest inventories and attitude measures to identify potential vocational agriculture students. (3) While a larger percentage of both groups of students liked agriculture, overall non-vocational agriculture students were not interested in vocational agriculture. (4) Students' interest and desire to be in the FFA, and their belief that vocational agriculture provided them with job related skills, were the most significant variables positively affecting enrollment decision of ninth graders. (5) Of all the variables tested, school counselors had the least influence upon student enrollment decision.;Procedures. The sample included three hundred seventy students enrolled in vocational agriculture in twenty-four schools, drawn from a population of three thousand nine hundred eleven freshmen students enrolled in vocational agriculture from all two hundred forty-five schools with vocational agriculture programs in Missouri. A control group of freshmen students not enrolled in vocational agriculture was surveyed in each of our selected schools. Parents of both groups of students were also surveyed. The dependent variable was enrollment. Selection of the independent variables was based upon our literature review of factors considered as influential upon students' enrollment decision. The data obtained were analyzed by using a MANOVA and the chi square procedure, which also produced a contingency coefficient. |
