Agricultural Education Teachers’ Ability to Solve Agriculturally Related Mathematics Problems

The National Commission on Secondary Vocational Education (1984) made two important recommendations for curriculum. First, vocational courses should provide instruction and practice in the basic skills including mathematics. Second, students should be allowed to satisfy graduation requirements for basic skills courses including mathematics with selected vocational education courses. Agricultural educators have begun to embrace the practice of including academic skills, particularly those related to science and to a lesser degree those related to mathematics, in secondary agriculture programs. And the need for research in this area has become more apparent (Buriak & Shinn, 1991; Johnson, 1991). determine the mathematical problem-solving ability of high school and college students enrolled in agricultural mechanics courses (Gliem & Elliot, 1988; Gliem, Lichtensteiger & Hard, 1987; Gliem & Warmbrod, 1986). Findings have consistently revealed that the mathematical problem-solving ability of students is low. Only one study was identified that investigated the mathematical problem-solving ability of vocational agriculture teachers. Gliem and Persinger (1987) found that vocational agriculture teachers scored below an expected level of competence on a mathematical problem-solving test related to agricultural mechanics.