Impact of Participation in FFA Career Development Events and Competency of Coaches on Students' Motivation

Abstract

Career and leadership development events (CDEs/LDEs) have maintained a prominent position in the National FFA Organization throughout the organization's history. These competitive events have been promoted as tools for motivating students toward agricultural education and developing participants' college and career readiness skills. However, a gap in the literature exists in terms of describing the motivating effects of participation in these competitions. As such, a survey design study was initiated to describe the motivational outcomes of participation in CDEs/LDEs, accounting for participants' performance and perception of their FFA advisor's coaching competency. Keller's ARCS model of motivation served as the conceptual base to describe participant motivation, which is grounded in Expectancy Value Theory (EVT). A modified instrument was adapted from Myers, Feltz, Maier, Wolfe, and Reckase to describe coaching competency, and a participant efficacy scale was used to determine students' perception of success and failure in a CDE/LDE. Findings from the study revealed that participants were interested in agricultural careers, but not necessarily related to their CDE/LDE. The findings also showed no significant difference of motivation and efficacy, regardless of participants performance, indicating that students' motivation and efficacy was not influenced by their individual or team ranking. Alternative rewards systems were suggested to recognize mastery of skills rather than winning. Both high and low ranking CDE/LDE participants rated their advisors as highly competent. This result suggested that lower performing CDE/LDE participants do not attribute their performance to their advisors' coaching. It was recommended that teachers establish high performance standards that are clear to their students, and they provide opportunities for students to develop mastery in their skills, leading to greater sources of self-efficacy.