THE IMPORTANCE OF SELECTED INSTRUCTIONAL AREAS IN THE PRESENT AND FUTURE SECONDARY AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION CURRICULUM AS PERCEIVED BY TEACHERS, PRINCIPALS, AND SUPERINTENDENTS IN NEBRASKA

The purpose of this study was to determine how agricultural education instructors and their administrators viewed the importance of the current and future instructional areas as part of the agricultural education curriculum in Nebraska. The population of the study included all agricultural teachers, principals, and superintendents of secondary schools in Nebraska which offered agricultural education during the 1989-1990 school year (n=381). A random sample of forty schools were selected from the population. The respondents were asked to rate the importance of topics in both the current and future agricultural education curriculum. No instructional topics were identified as either very important or of little importance in either the current or future Nebraska curriculum. Instructional topics identified by all groups as important in the current curriculum were agricultural economics and marketing and computer technology. In the future curriculum, all groups identified leadership and personal development, agricultural business management, natural resources and the environment, in addition to agricultural economics and marketing and computer technology. The findings of the study support the position that local educators take a cautious and low risk attitude toward educational reform. Of the three respondent groups, principals were the most inclined toward curriculum change