68 Arkansas Beef Industry Assessment: Educator results.

A two-phase study was conducted with educators to better understand the current state of the Arkansas beef industry. Educators are defined as individuals who directly work to educate both adults and youth. Ten educators participated in Phase 1 of the study. Nominal group research methods were utilized to identify current strengths, limitations, future opportunities, and future threats to the Arkansas beef industry. The items identified were then compiled for Phase 2 of the study. An online survey was emailed to 100 educators who were randomly selected from a larger list. Survey respondents were asked to rank the importance of items on a Likert-type scale where 1=not important and 5=highly important. Sixty-two surveys were completed of which 40% were adult educators, 34% were K-12 youth educators, 16% were youth educators, and 10% were post-secondary educators. When asked about the current strengths of educational support, participants indicated Educators stay current with knowledge (M = 4.58, SD = 0.64) as the top strength and State funding (M = 3.76, SD = 1.08) as the bottom strength. State, federal, and private investment funding for education, infrastructure, and technology (M = 4.44, SD = 0.73) was ranked with high importance when asked about current limitations whereas Education curriculum in classroom is outdated (M = 3.58, SD = 1.01) was ranked as somewhat important. The top future opportunity was Educating legislators about beef industry (M = 4.72, SD = 0.54) but Get beef cattle producers to increase check-off contribution by one cent (M = 3.26, SD = 1.10) was at the bottom. Lastly, educators ranked Entry costs to the industry (M = 4.51, SD = 0.71) as the most important future threat while Failure to lead or chase issues (M = 3.90, SD = 0.87) as the least important future threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]