Student misbehavior in vocational agriculture: a national study

The major purpose of this study was to determine the seriousness of specific student misbehaviors as perceived by vocational agriculture teachers. The secondary purpose was to determine if differences exist among groups of vocational agriculture teachers based on selected demographic and situational variables with regard to the seriousness of student misbehaviors.

The population for this study was composed of 12,726 vocational agriculture teachers as listed in the 1981 Agriculture Teachers' Directory. A sample of 604 teachers was selected for inclusion in this study.

The instrument used to collect data contained demographic and situational information with a five point Likert-type scale to measure the specific student misbehaviors. Useable returns from 437 teachers represented 72.02 percent of the sample.

The statistical techniques used to analyze the data were factor analysis, multivariate analysis of variance, analysis of variance, Pearson product-moment correlation, and the Scheffé post hoc multiple comparisons test. The major conclusions of this study were:

1. Those misbehaviors which were rated the most serious to vocational agriculture teachers were generally attitudinal in nature, i.e. ambivalence, clowning/foolish behavior, etc. Those misbehaviors which might be considered to be severe in nature, i.e. rape, homicides, etc., were not a serious problem for vocational agriculture teachers.

2. Senior high school teachers of vocational agriculture perceive a less serious student attitudinal problem than combination junior-senior high school vocational agriculture teachers.

3. Teachers in schools of over 2000 enrolled and teachers in Region 1 of the National Vocational Agriculture Teachers' Association perceived use of drugs to be more serious than teachers in Region 4 and teachers in schools with enrollments of less than 2000.

Studies of this nature should be conducted across service areas of vocational education to determine the seriousness of student misbehaviors in each respective area. Studies of this nature should also be conducted outside of vocational education to determine similarities and differences from vocational agriculture teachers in regard to the seriousness of student misbehaviors.