Core Competencies for 4-H Volunteer Leaders Differentiated by Occupation, Level of Education, and College Major: Implications for Leadership Education

The purpose of this study was to demographically describe 4-H volunteer leaders’ competencies for effective delivery of 4-H youth development programs. As a subset of the data, occupation, level of education, college major of the volunteer leaders, staff and faculty were gathered as the primary focus the article. The study was descriptive and correlational in nature. The study found that 4-H volunteer leaders are more highly educated than those from earlier studies; educational majors are more diverse; 10 of the 32 competencies were found to be significant by level of education; and level of education has no impact upon the ten fundamental competencies needed to effectively deliver 4-H programs.