A Day in the Life of an Agricultural Professional: Telling Stories From the Images Drawn by Middle and High School-Aged Youth

Abstract Information: Stereotypically, the perception among young people about the agricultural profession is that of a farmer, machinery, and an outdoor location. However, there exist many career options in agricultural science outside of farming. Despite a projected growth of 9% between 2020 and 2030 for careers in agricultural science (U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021), there already is a significant gap in the estimated number of college graduates to fill in the projected job openings (Fernandez et al., 2020). This gap presents a unique opportunity to investigate the career development pathways of youth in the agricultural science field. In recognition of this, at a food and agricultural-technology non-formal education program, a visual evaluation measure was used to assess the perceptions of middle and high-school-aged youth about the agricultural profession. The Draw an Agricultural Professional (DAAP) worksheet, an adaptation of the Draw-a-Scientist Test (Chambers, 1983) and Draw an Engineer Test (Knight & Cunningham, 2004), was used in this assessment, allowing youth to draw an agricultural professional at work. The study analyzed the drawn images to identify themes and insights into the daily lives of agricultural professionals as well as the perceptions of youth about the agricultural industry. Through this approach, we discovered that youth from rural and urban communities were able to convey data about the people, practices, and activities involved in agriculture. This presentation, therefore, seeks to use the drawn images as storytelling prompts to uncover and discuss any stereotypical and unique perceptions about the agricultural profession and industry.

Relevance Statement: Drawn images are important in assessing youths’ understanding of the world around them, including their perceptions of a specific profession. Considering that youths’ perceptions about specific professions can influence their interest in that profession, it remains critical that these perceptions of specific professions are assessed for educational programs to be designed effectively to address any underlying assumptions. As noted by Wilson and Wilson (1977) in their piece on the imagery sources in the drawings of young people, “young people learn to draw mainly through influence and imitation (p. 5). As such, using visual evaluation measures helps to uncover the sources of influence and imitation through which the perceptions of youth are created. The visual evaluation measure used for the non-formal program described earlier allowed us to engage youth who may struggle with other traditional evaluation approaches. Wilson, B., & Wilson, M. (1977). An iconoclastic view of the imagery sources in the drawings of young people. Art Education, 30(1), 4-11.