With serious skill shortages in the field of marketing expected during this time period, the increase in marketing opportunities will reinforce the importance of marketing education (U. S. Department of Labor, 1989). "Marketing education programs must be structured to match the diversity of marketing dealing with the principles, concepts, attitudes, and skills necessary to prepare students to work in retail, service, and other business environments." (National Marketing Education Curriculum Framework, 1987, p. 7).

The attitudes counselors have toward marketing education can have a major impact on course enrollment and students' planning of schedules including a combination of both academic and vocational courses (Washburn & McEwen, 1989). To date no evidence was found in the literature that shows what high school counselors think about the overall marketing education program.

The purpose of this study was to determine selected Virginia's secondary school counselors' perceptions towards Virginia's Marketing Education program. A mail survey was developed and distributed to 186 schools offering a Marketing Education program in Virginia.

When completing Section 1 of the survey instrument, participants supplied information concerning selected demographic variables. Data obtained from Section 1 were used to determine if differences existed between these selected demographic variables and Virginia's secondary school counselors' attitudes toward Virginia's Marketing Education program. When completing Section 2, participants used a 5-item Likert-type scale to indicate their attitudes toward Virginia's Marketing Education program. When completing Section 3--Virginia's secondary school counselors' knowledge of Virginia's Marketing Education program--participants selected true, false, or don't know to indicate their knowledge of Virginia's Marketing Education program.

Two hundred and eighty-five counselors in 62% of the schools offering a Marketing Education program in Virginia participated in the study. Research question 1 found that most of the counselors responding have a positive attitude toward Virginia's Marketing Education programs. Research question 2, seeking information on what secondary school counselors know about Marketing Education found that even though their attitudes may be positive, they are not knowledgeable about the Marketing Education program.

Research question 3 concerning selected demographic variables in relation to counselors' attitudes toward and knowledge of Marketing Education found that very small differences exist between the selected demographic variables and Virginia's secondary school counselors' attitudes toward and knowledge of Virginia's Marketing Education program. Conclusions and discussion, considerations for the study, recommendations, and suggestions for future research were described.