LEADERSHIP AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT ABILITIES POSSESSED BY HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS WHO ARE FFA MEMBERS IN SUPERIOR FFA CHAPTERS, NON-SUPERIOR CHAPTERS, AND BY SENIORS WHO WERE NEVER ENROLLED IN VOCATIONAL AGRICULTURE

The primary purpose of this study was to describe the leadership and personal development abilities that were possessed by four groups of high school senior males, namely vocational agriculture/FFA students who participated in high quality (superior) FFA chapters, vocational agriculture/FFA students who participated in low quality (non-superior) FFA chapters, and those non-vocational agriculture students from the schools with superior and non-superior FFA chapters who were never enrolled in vocational agriculture.;Analysis of covariance was calculated to determine if there was a statistical difference at the .05 level between the four groups on the leadership and personal development test scores. The findings, by using post hoc analysis (Newman-Keuls test) on the unequal sized groups, reported that vocational agriculture students from superior and nonsuperior FFA chapters possess significantly (at the .05 level) more leadership and personal development abilities than students who have never been enrolled in vocational agriculture. However, the extent to which the vocational agricultural FFA students possessed leadership and personal development abilities was much less than this writer feels that the profession should be willing to accept since vocational agriculture/FFA students scored at the 58 percent mastery level. Non-vocational agriculture students scored at the 46 percent mastery level. Considerably more of the vocational agriculture students from the superior FFA chapters (33 percent) possessed a 75 percent mastery level of leadership and personal development abilities as compared to 14 percent of the vocational agriculture students from non-superior FFA chapters and three percent for students who had never been enrolled in vocational agriculture.;Active FFA members in traditional vocational agriculture four year programs, single teacher departments with high schools of less than 1,000 total enrollment in Middle Tennessee comprised the target population for this study. The sample included students from eight schools with superior FFA chapters and eight schools with non-superior FFA chapters. Each student was given an instrument that included, among other things, a 66 question criterion-referenced multiple choice test which measured leadership and personal development skills. A Kuder-Richardson 20 reliability coefficient of .86 was obtained on the instrument measuring leadership and personal development skills.