An Exploration of Relationships between Teaching Practices in Secondary Agricultural Education Programs and Student Engagement

This study was designed to explore the relationship between teacher practices and levels of student engagement in secondary agricultural education programs. Most researchers have agreed that student engagement at the secondary level may be measured through three constructs: cognitive engagement, behavioral engagement, and emotional engagement. The intra-curricular components, namely the FFA organization and Supervised Agricultural Experience Program, make secondary agricultural education unique when compared to the foundational classes of math, science, and English. Respondents included a total of 152 agricultural education programs, which were randomly selected within 11 states to participate in the study. One class in each program was surveyed, which totaled 2,106 student respondents. Relationships were identified between specific teaching and advising practices performed by the secondary agricultural educator and their students’ level of engagement in classroom, FFA, and SAE activities. Each state is encouraged to replicate this study to determine student engagement levels in classroom, FFA and SAE activities, and then identify the causes and conditions leading to higher and lower levels of student engagement.