Theses and Dissertations Collection

Educational partnerships in schools play a crucial role in preparing students for success in the 21st century workplace. These partnerships are an engrained and essential part of agricultural education programs whereby external supporters give their time, talent, and resources to assist teachers and students. Successful educational partnerships are reliant in part on the agricultural teachers’ ability to recruit and retain quality supporters. Understanding the unique demographics and preferences of supporters is a vital part of managing those individuals. The purpose of this research study is to examine the perspectives that exist related to agricultural education supporter personas.

A Q-method research design was used to describe the personas of school-based agricultural education supporters in Idaho. The findings of this research resulted in the interpretation of three personas. Persona 1 supporters perceive the success of the agricultural program as the success of their community, and value diversity and team work. Persona 2 supporters are driven to increase students’ career success and knowledge of agriculture and provide contributions unique to each individual supporter. Persona 3 supporters desire close, personal connections with the agricultural program and seek to promote the diverse opportunities within 21st century agricultural education programs.