ATTITUDES AND STAGES OF CONCERN OF ELEMENTARY TEACHERS TOWARD AGRICULTURE AS A CONTEXT FOR TEACHING ACROSS GRADE LEVEL CONTENT AREA STANDARDS

The purpose of this study was to describe elementary teachers ’ attitudes and perceptions toward agriculture and its use as a context for teaching across the grade level content area standards. Further, this study sought to probe more deeply the stages of concern possessed by kindergarten through eighth grade teachers with respect to their use of an agriculture awareness curriculum aligned to content area state standards. Results indicated that elementary teachers generally hold favorable attitudes toward agriculture as a viable integrating tool to teach across disciplines. Elementary teachers who reported using the curriculum were unique in their highest stage of concern, but all of the sample members recorded first or second highest stages of concern at the informational stage, thereby indicating a desire to continue gathering information related to the educational innovation. Users of the curriculum recorded the highest relative intensity in the informational and personal stages of concern and lowest intensities in the refocusing and consequence stages. Nonusers recorded the highest relative intensities in the awareness and informational stages, with lowest relative intensities in the refocusing, consequence, and collaboration stages. Recommendations for focused delivery of professional development activities were made