The purpose of the study was to analyze the level of understanding of farm management principles possessed by vocational agriculture instructors of young farmer programs in the State of Virginia.

Specific objectives of the study were (1) to assess the level of understanding of farm management principles possessed by vocational agriculture instructors of Virginia young farmer programs, (2) to measure the relationship between variables of instructors and their level of understanding of farm management principles, (3) to determine the ranking of importance of twenty-one farm management instructional units, and (4) to determine the proportion of time allowed for farm management instruction in relation to the total time of instruction within young farmer programs.

A 72 percent usable response was realized from the randomly selected sample which constituted data input for the study. Data collection instruments included a questionnaire developed by the researcher and the "management" section of The Agribusiness Achievement Test. The data collection procedure consisted of administering the questionnaire and test instrument to part of the sample subjects during the 1977 Virginia Young Farmers' Convention and mailing packets of data collection material to sample subjects who did not provide data during the Convention.

Analysis of the data was accomplished using the following statistics: descriptive statistics, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to test null hypotheses for significance, and a stepwise inclusion multiple regression to determine which variables of the instructors were most related to their level of understanding of farm management principles.

Of seven null hypotheses tested at the .05 alpha level, only one was rejected. The rejected null hypothesis was that there would be no difference in the level of understanding of farm management principles possessed by vocational agriculture instructors who have taken zero through 6.4 quarter hour credits, 6.5 through 12.4 quarter hour credits, or more than 12.5 quarter hour credits of business courses. However, the difference between the test means occurred between the 6.5 through 12.4 quarter hour credits group and the 12.5 or more quarter hour credits group.

Years of teaching pre-secondary vocational agriculture and age of instructor, a negative predictor, were independent variables most related to the vocational agriculture instructors' level of understanding of farm management principles. Both of these variables were significant at the .05 alpha level.

In ranking the importance of twenty-one farm management instructional units, Virginia vocational agriculture instructors identified financial topics as being the most important aspects of farm management instruction. Approximately a quarter of the time allowed for instruction within young farmer programs was devoted to teaching farm management.

Recommendations generated from the findings of the study were (1) further studies should be conducted to assess what level of competence should be possessed by vocational agriculture instructors who teach young farmers, (2) advise prospective vocational agriculture instructors of young farmers to enroll in business courses, (3) conduct a study to determine the extent to which the twenty-one farm management instructional units are being taught in Virginia young farmer programs, (4) conduct a study to determine the importance of farm management instruction units as perceived by young farmer program participants, and (5) replicate this study in other states and compare results with those of this study.