Practicing Today to Reach the Podium Tomorrow: Understanding Strategies School-Based Agricultural Education Teachers Utilize to Implement Competition in the Classroom

Competition is one of many teaching methods one can use in designing curriculum. Healthy competition has been a staple of SBAE across classroom instruction, FFA, and experiential learning for nearly 100 years. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study is to evaluate the ways in which SBAE teachers implement competition in their classrooms. Eighteen SBAE teachers who participated in a prior quantitative study were selected as participants for this study; each engaged in a semi-structured interview and submitted artifacts to illustrate the use of competition within their classrooms. The study revealed that teachers enjoy integrating competition within their classroom and tend to do so utilizing resources developed by other agricultural educators or National FFA. High pedagogical design capacity is demonstrated by SBAE teachers as they adapt these resources to meet the needs of their programs or learners. Future research is needed to understand students’ perspectives of competition in the form of interviews or classroom observations. This study, in conjunction with additional research, can guide the development of additional professional development or a competition best practices guide for educators wishing to implement more competition in their classroom as an engagement and motivational tool.