| The primary purpose of this study was to determine personal characteristics of effective agriculture teachers, and the level of effectiveness of agriculture teachers in performing their responsibilities, as perceived by the agriculture teachers, their student teachers and immediate supervisors. The secondary purpose was to identify the best predictors of teacher effectiveness as determined by personal characteristics. The population for this study included all agricultural education teachers who had served as cooperating teachers for an agricultural education student teaching intern from the University of Missouri during Winter Semester 2001, their student teacher and administrator.;Teachers in this study were active participants in an agricultural program while students in high school The teachers/respondents were active FFA members, averaging 4.3 years of FFA membership. The cooperating teachers had extensive secondary agricultural teaching experience, averaging 16.5 years of teaching experience. Possessing an undergraduate degree in agricultural education only does not appear to be a prerequisite to be an effective teacher of agricultural education. The greatest personal characteristic strengths among teachers studied included attendance and punctuality, leadership, dependability, quantity and quality of work, interpersonal skills and analytical ability. Personal characteristic weaknesses include conflict resolution, creativity, the ability to work under pressure, planning and organizational skills, adaptability and initiative.;Teachers identified their greatest strengths in the areas of Professional Responsibilities, Professional Development, Rapport with Parents, Communications Skills and Maintaining a Strong FFA Program. Weaknesses identified were in the areas of Building Agricultural Literacy in the Community and Adult Education.;There appears to be a potential method of predicting teacher effectiveness using the data gathered from the Personal Characteristics Instrument. This study suggests that effective teachers are not likely to find fun in the challenge of learning a new skill to be fun, do not look for new assignments when one is about to be finished and do not produce a large volume of work. |
