| The review of the literature reveals the historical nature of Vocational Education programs and how they relate to the importance of Virginia Tech's two-year post-secondary Agricultural Technology Program. The literature review also provides a historical review of information regarding Virginia Tech's Agricultural Technology program, brief histories of other post-secondary land-grant two-year agricultural programs, vocational education philosophers, and two-year program evaluations.;The purpose of this study was to perform an evaluation of past performance of the two-year Agricultural Technology Program at Virginia Tech as perceived by the two-year program graduates. The study focused on two points, (a) the graduate's opinions with regards toward the improvement of the program on behalf of the students, and (b) the strength and weaknesses of the program in order to determine what the program has accomplished and where it should be headed.;Five research questions guided this study; (1) How pleased were the graduates with the education they received through the Agricultural Technology Program? (2) What is the salary range of the graduate's first job after graduation and what is their present salary range? (3) What were the strengths and weaknesses of the program as perceived from the graduates? (4) What are the Agricultural Technology graduates current occupations? (5) What recommendations do the graduates have for the improvement of the Agricultural Technology Program?;A survey instrument was used as the research method for the collection of the data. A pilot study was performed to test the survey instrument. Three rounds of survey instruments were sent to increase the possible response rate. A non-respondents study was performed to determine if there was a difference between the respondents and non-respondents of the survey instrument. Frequencies, mean, median, mode, and standard deviation were used in the analysis of the data.;Based on the findings recommendations were made about further studies for the addition of courses, faculty, program options, more emphasis of technology in courses, curriculum development, job placement, and credit hour transferability. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
