Opinions of the Tennessee Industrial Arts Curriculum Model by Tennessee Industrial Teachers

The Tennessee Industrial Arts Curriculum Model had not been evaluated since it was adopted by the Tennessee Department of Education as a guide for industrial arts. The main purpose of this study was to identify the opinions that middle/junior and senior high school industrial arts teachers had concerning the use of the model as a guideline to teaching industrial arts. A second purpose was to determine whether related work experience, membership in professional vocational organizations, workshops attended, and the amount of local and state support had an effect on their opinions of the model.

Data were collected by means of a survey instrument using a Likert type scale. The survey instrument was field tested by twenty industrial arts personnel across the state of Tennessee. The revised instrument was sent to all middle/junior and senior high school industrial arts teachers in Tennessee. Of the instruments sent, 73.3 percent was completed and returned. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences computer program analysed the data using Pearson's correlation and the t-test.

From the study, it was concluded that the more work experience, number of workshops attended, and the greater the support received from administrators, education and community resource personnel, the stronger in agreement middle/junior and senior high teachers are toward using the model as a guide. However, the longer the senior high teachers teach, the less they agree with the outline of the model. The greater the industrial work experience of the middle/junior high teachers, the more they agreed with the outline of the model.