Focusing agricultural education research: Strategies for the professor

Universities are in a period of transition driven by profound changes in society. “Strategic planning” is a common term used on many campuses to describe an ongoing process of program evaluation and refinement. Colleges of agriculture and education, the home of most agricultural education programs, are identifying priorities and clarifying missions. To provide a basis for decision-making and resource allocation, mechanisms are being stalled to monitor the status and progress of academic programs. Periods of transition provide agricultural education units in higher education the opportunity to define the unique contributions they make or could make to the teaching, research, and extension functions of the institution and to explore changes that would maximize productivity of the faculty. Transition is also a time for professors to prioritize their work. This paper concerns agricultural education research from the faculty perspective. A dictionary definition of research is “careful, systematic study and investigation in some field of knowledge” (Webster’s New World Dictionary, 1990). Borg and Gall (1989, p. 15) described the purpose of research as the “discovery of new knowledge about teaching, learning, administration, and other educational phenomena. ” Much of the research in agricultural education focuses on understandin