Determining the Antecedents of Preparation of SBAE Teachers Who Effectively Facilitate Learning in SBAE Laboratories

The purpose of this qualitative study was to discover how expert school-based agricultural education (SBAE) teachers describe the experiences which best prepared them to have the ability to teach, manage, and facilitate learning activities in agricultural education laboratories. SBAE teachers teach technical skills and how to safely and properly use equipment associated with those skills, such as electrical, welding, woodworking, greenhouse watering and heating systems, aquaculture systems, and agricultural mechanics. All of these skills are demonstrated, practiced, and are mastered in agricultural education laboratories. Perhaps adequate training of pre-service SBAE teachers, particularly in the most common laboratories such as greenhouses, agricultural mechanics labs, carpentry labs, and welding laboratories would help mitigate the growing SBAE teacher attrition rate and ensure that proper laboratory teaching techniques and management is implemented. The teachers participating in this study had an average of 13.4 (σ = 8.5) years of teaching experience in laboratories. After conducting interviews with all teachers, two themes that emerged from this study, (1) teachers accredited their ability to teach in SBAE laboratories to experiences in informal settings, and (2) teachers accredited their ability to teach in SBAE laboratories to experiences in formal settings. The four supporting four sub-themes were mentorship, secondary agricultural education experiences, underprepared for laboratory instruction, and desire for additional training. Based on this study’s findings, it is recommended beginning teachers be placed with a mentor, and an increase in laboratory training be required for pre-service SBAE teachers.