Benefits of participation in Tennessee 4-H junior high academic conference as perceived by selected former participants

The purpose of this study was to determine if and how youth participating in Tennessee 4-H Junior High Academic Conference benefitted from attending the conference. Objectives of the study were to: (1) develop a demographic profile/description of survey respondents; (2) determine if participation in the conference influenced respondents to continue their education or get some idea of a field of study for the future, (3) to determine what perceived effect the conference had on respondents' personal/social competencies, (4) to determine what perceived effect attending the conference had on respondents' cognitive/creative competencies, (5) to determine what perceived effect attending the conference had on respondents' vocational competence, (6) to determine what participants remembered most about the conference and (7) to gain any suggestions that participants had related to improving the conference in future years.

A mailed questionnaire was developed to meet the objectives of the study. A random sample of the population was used for the mailing list and appropriate descriptive statistics were used in reporting findings.

FINDINGS

Respondents felt that the conference positively effected their knowledge of possible areas of study and steps needed to make career choices, their decision to continue their education and to a lesser degree their choice of main area(s) of study.

Respondents were very positive in their responses to the effect of the conference on personal/social skills with the effect on interpersonal skills being the highest, effect on coping skills being next, followed by effect on judgement skills and finally by the effect on intrapersonal skills.

Respondents were very positive about the effects of the conference on their cognitive/creative competencies with broadening their subject matter base of knowledge related to their project area being the highest, followed closely by effect on ability to leam/interest in learning, then effect on oral and written communication skills and effect on problem solving and analytical skills being last.

Respondents were very positive about the effects of the conference on their vocational competencies with broadening understanding/awareness of vocational/job options being the highest followed by the effect on preparing necessary steps to choose a career.

CONCLUSIONS

Tennessee Junior High 4-H Academic Conference has a positive impact on participants. Participants increase their personal/social, cognitive/creative and vocational competencies by attending the conference. The conference has a positive impact on participants' decisions to continue their education and the percentage of survey respondents majoring in agriculture was substantially larger than in the average population.