Masters Theses

Date of Award

5-1969

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Agriculture and Extension Education

Major Professor

Cecil E. Carter

Committee Members

Robert S. Dotson, Charles L. Cleland

Abstract

This study was undertaken to determine the tasks 4-H project leaders performed, to secure leaders' and agents' opinions concerning the tasks that should be performed by 4-H project leaders, and to determine the opinions of 4-H project leaders and Extension agents concerning the qualifications of 4-H project leaders to perform the 55 selected tasks.

Questionnaires were mailed to 463 4-H project leaders and 27 Extension agents in 14 Tennessee counties.

Useable returns were received from 225 project leaders and 27 Extension agents. Data were punched on processing cards and computations of frequencies, percents, and chi square values were made by the University of Tennessee Computing Center.

Analysis of the data revealed that: (1) generally, the location of leaders in counties with a large or small number of project leaders did not significantly influence the number of tasks performed by the leaders; (2) an average of 40 percent of the leaders were performing each of the 55 tasks; (3) 71.6 percent of the leaders and 86.6 percent of the agents felt leaders should perform each of the 55 tasks; (4) an average of 57 percent of the leaders and 18.8 percent of the agents felt leaders were qualified to perform the 55 selected tasks of 4-H project work; (5) leaders were primarily performing the teaching, organizational, and providing recognition roles (the roles of planning, evaluation and reporting were performed by few leaders); (6) leaders felt they should primarily perform the teaching, organizational and providing recognition roles; (7) the largest percent of leaders felt qualified to perform the roles of reporting, providing recognition and evaluating progress of 4-H members; (8) the planning tasks were ranked lowest by the agents in terms of the roles project leaders should perform; and (9) the agents felt leaders were best qualified to perform the planning tasks and least qualified to perform the teaching tasks of 4-H project work.

The following conclusions were made: (1) project leaders felt qualified to perform and felt they should perform more tasks than they actually performed; (2) project leaders and agents were generally not in agreement as to the tasks leaders should perform and as to the tasks leaders were qualified to perform; (3) project leaders' expectations concerning the tasks they should perform influenced the number of tasks actually performed (leaders who felt they should perform more tasks generally did so); (4) project leaders had more confidence in their "preparedness" to perform the 55 selected tasks of 4-H project work than the Extension agents had in the leaders'; and (5) leaders in counties with a large number (70 or more) of leaders performed about the same number of tasks as leaders in counties with a small number (between 4 and 24) of project leaders.

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