Hybrid Vigor: A Quantitative Analysis of Job Satisfaction of United States School Based Secondary Agricultural Education Classrooms

Abstract

The balance between work and personal life has seen a renewed focus in the years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the years leading up to the work stoppage in 2020 a growing body of literature was being compiled that agriculture teachers, as many of the American population do, suffered from a lack of balance between personal and work life. This study sought to examine the way agriculture teachers spent their time, how they viewed their job satisfaction, and if any relationships exist between them. A national sample of agriculture teachers (N = 570) was conducted and when the results were interpreted it was found that agriculture teachers are majority female (51.9%), almost all took agriculture courses in high school (89.3%), were active in FFA in high school (81.9%), and many continued that membership into college (44.9%). Most teachers spent some time outside of school hours preparing for class, SAE supervision, and other school-based activities, but most of their time was spent on FFA activities. Teachers reported some time spent in domestic, civic/religious, and recreation time outside of work. Teachers had a heavy slant towards positive job satisfaction, (M = 1.86, SD = .788) on a one through five scale with one being extremely good and five being extremely bad. Significant correlations were found at a small level (Cohen, 2013) between time in SAE, time in recreation, and salary range with job satisfaction. Significant linear (p < 0.05) regressions were calculated with salary, time in SAE’s, time spent in recreation. Time spent in recreation provided the best fit.