The major purpose of the study was to determine and compare the value orientations among Virginia secondary vocational and technical education teachers in each of the following vocational service areas: (1) agriculture, (2) business, (3) distribution, (4) health occupations, (5) home economics, (6) industrial arts, and (7) trades and industries. Value orientations referred to the six basic motives of personality described by Spranger (1928) and were operationally defined as scores on six values--theoretical, economic, political, aesthetic, social, and religious--of the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values.

Secondary vocational and technical education teachers employed on a full-time basis in Virginia public schools comprised the population. A 12 percent stratified random sampling of the population yielded a sample size of 478 vocational and technical educators stratified as follows: 42 agriculture, 156 business, 42 distributive, 21 health occupations, 69 home economics, 64 industrial arts, and 84 trades and industries. Data were collected through a mail survey technique. A 73 percent return rate was obtained through the responses of 349 teachers.

The one-way analysis of variance, the analysis of covariance, and the Scheffe test for multiple comparisons were utilized in order to test the following hypotheses: After making adjustments for the covariates (sex, race, residence background, age, educational status, years of teaching experience, and years of occupational experience), Virginia secondary teachers of agriculture, business, distribution, health occupations, home economics, industrial arts, and trades and industries do not differ in terms of their

Hypothesis I: theoretical values

Hypothesis II: economic values

Hypothesis III: aesthetic values

Hypothesis IV: social values

Hypothesis V: political values

Hypothesis VI: religious values

The findings indicated that specialists within vocational and technical education in Virginia public schools are not a homogeneous group in terms of their adjusted economic, aesthetic, and political values. However, these teachers do not differ significantly in terms of their adjusted theoretical, aesthetic, and religious values. Data also suggested that the covariates investigated (sex, race, residential background, age, educational status, years of teaching experience, and years of occupational experience) influenced value orientations.