Concerns Expressed By Student Teachers In Agriculture

The purpose of this study was to explore concerns (teaching and non-teaching) expressed by agricultural education student teachers. Agricultural education student teachers at Iowa State University communicated with fellow student teachers and university supervisors about nonteaching and teaching concerns, gave advice, responded to questions, and shared lesson plans or ideas using an Internet-based communication tool. Student teachers were most concerned with self-adequacy. Self-adequacy concerns related to subject matter knowledge, discipline, and administrative rules. Moreover, the type of teaching concerns expressed by student teachers majoring in agricultural education was not dependent upon gender. Results also indicated that student teachers may have valued the Internet as a communication tool for a range of purposes. Overall, student teachers in this agricultural education program were not developmentally different from other student teachers from various academic disciplines.