Contemporary issues in Colorado vocational agriculture education: Identifying future directions

he purpose of this descriptive study was to identify those contemporary issues related to the vocational agriculture education profession as perceived by vocational agriculture teachers, school administrators, and advisory committee members. A review of current literature and a panel of experts in vocational agriculture education were used to provide a valid list of sixteen issues and ninety-nine related positions regarding the profession. A mailed questionnaire was used to obtain interval level data related to the importance of individual issues, and nominal level data pertaining to the extent of agreement/disagreement on the positions. A test-retest design found the questionnaire to be reliable (p ;The panel of experts identified the need to determine if differences exist between the two major forms of agriculture education programs, vocational and non-vocational, on selected issues. The study concluded that the source of funding for an agricultural education program has an impact on the perception of the mission. The issues of "who is responsible for determining the content of the curriculum" and the "purpose/mission of vocational agriculture education" were ranked as the two most important issues related to the future direction of vocational agriculture education. The issues receiving the lowest ranking pertained to the title used to describe the form of agriculture education. Other findings include a general support for awarding academic credit for those enrolled in vocational agriculture programs.;Likert Scale data was used to provide mean scores for the purpose of ranking the issues in order of importance. The extent of agreement or disagreement among the respondents pertaining to the individual positions was summarized using percentages and frequencies. One-way analysis of variance (p...