Entrepreneurship Education, Practice, and Professional Development Needs of Secondary Agriculture Teachers

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe secondary agriculture teachers’ extent of entrepreneurship education, sources of entrepreneurship knowledge, use of classroom entrepreneurship projects, and entrepreneurship education professional development needs. A descriptive cross sectional survey of all secondary agriculture teachers in the state of Iowa in the United States was conducted. A majority of teachers who responded to this survey had taken one course each in economics (65%) and business (59%). Thirty-two percent had taken more than one economics course, while 25% had taken more than one business course. Very few (5%) had a minor in agribusiness. Sixty-four percent of teachers identified family business experience as their source of entrepreneurship knowledge, while 60% identified self-education through reading and other means. Agricultural sales was the most common classroom entrepreneurship project (61%), followed by greenhouse (57%), agricultural services (46%), crop production (46%), and landscape services (44%) projects. Teachers rated business incubation and growth, business plan development, business resourcing, opportunity analysis, and innovation as their top five professional development need areas. The findings have implications for designing entrepreneurship education professional development programs for agriculture teachers.