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Abstract
Each year teachers with varying levels of education, varying routes to certification, and varying skill sets enter the agricultural education classroom. The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the development of teacher self-efficacy beliefs of agricultural education teachers utilizing an instrument specific to an agricultural education teacher. More specifically investigated were the teacher efficacy scores using a researcher-developed instrument specific to agricultural education teachers. Also explored were the impacts of alternative certification, personal and situational characteristics, and the predictability of constructs on identified outcomes of innovative teaching, job satisfaction, program impacts, and teacher retention. Findings of this study indicate that agricultural education teachers are fairly efficacious in the areas of Instructional Strategies in the Traditional Classroom and Student Engagement Outside the Traditional Classroom and least efficacious in Student Engagement in the Traditional Classroom and SAE Advisor Outside the Traditional Classroom. Based on the findings of this study, Management in the Traditional Classroom efficacy is very important to outcomes of Innovative Teaching, Job Satisfaction, Program Impacts, and Teacher Retention. This study also found that route to certification has no relationship on teacher self-efficacy development indicating that while each group had different mastery experiences they developed similar teacher self-efficacies. Further, it was determined that personal and situational characteristics are not strong predictors of teacher self-efficacy but have small varying degrees of influence. This research did find that age has a slight impact on management in the classroom further demonstrating the importance of Banduras mastery of experiences. Also, participation in FFA as a youth by the teachers had an impact on teacher self-efficacy of Management in the Traditional Classroom and FFA Advisor outside the traditional classroom.This instrument could be beneficial in the development of pre-service and in-service training programs by enhancing areas teachers perceive as strong and targeting the areas in which teachers perceive they are least capable. With further replication of this instrument, agricultural education preparatory programs have a strong tool for the development of quality programs and professional educators have direction for capacities to improve for career sustainability.