Date of Graduation

5-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Agricultural & Extension Education (MS)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Agricultural Education, Communications and Technology

Advisor/Mentor

Estepp, Christopher M.

Committee Member

Doss, William

Second Committee Member

Young, Heather D.

Keywords

Cooperating Teacher; Intent to Teach; Job Satisfaction; Mentorship; Student Teaching

Abstract

Almost a quarter of agricultural education graduates do not teach SBAE upon graduating (Foster et al., 2024), however, this attrition has not been widely studied and reasons for this decision have not been identified. To increase the number of qualified teachers entering the classroom, the reasons for this attrition must be identified and addressed by universities. This study was conducted to investigate possible relationships between cooperating teacher mentorship behaviors, job satisfaction, and intent to teach in spring 2024 agricultural education interns. A survey, which combined the student teacher view part of Nesbitt and Barry’s (2023) cooperating teacher best practices instrument with Brayfield and Rothe’s (1951) index of job satisfaction, and items for intent to teach and demographics, was emailed to 355 agricultural education interns. The sample was identified through a random cluster sampling of universities offering an agricultural education major. A total of 106 interns responded to the survey, yielding 103 usable responses, constituting a response rate of 30.03%. Interns were surveyed on their perceptions of their cooperating teachers’ mentorship behaviors, job satisfaction, intent to teach, and demographics. Descriptive statistics, correlational analysis, and logistic regression were used to answer the six research objectives that guided this study. Most participants were Caucasian (93.2%, n = 96), and female (80.6%, n = 83). The average cooperating teacher was Caucasian (98.1%, n = 101), male (53.4%, n = 55), and had 15.75 (SD = 9.00) years of teaching experience. The average student teaching placement site was small and in a rural community (64.1%, n = 66). Most (77.7%, n = 80) interns had a job teaching or had intentions of getting a job teaching SBAE for fall 2024. Interns perceived social support behaviors as the highest type of mentorship behavior (M = 4.43, SD = 0.82) and were satisfied with teaching as a job (M = 3.89, SD = 0.58). No demographics were related to intent to teach; however, all three mentorship behaviors and job satisfaction were related to intent to teach. A logistic regression revealed that role modeling and job satisfaction were the only variables that were predictive of intent to teach. Based on the results, the study makes recommendations for both practice and research.

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