This study's purpose was to identify Oklahoma non-collegiate livestock judging coaches' self-perceived confidence levels in evaluating livestock (cattle, goats, sheep and swine) and determine their interest in participating in coaching events and seminars. The population and scope included all Oklahoma non-collegiate coaches fielding a team at the State Qualifying Interscholastic livestock-judging contest Saturday, April 29, 2017 ( N = 84). Of the 84 eligible participants, 46 completed the questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze self-efficacy and desire to attend a clinic, while a chi-square test and correlation coefficients were used to determine relationships between respondents and their responses.

The typical Oklahoma livestock judging coach is a 40-year-old male teaching in rural Oklahoma with roughly 13 years of coaching experience. He also participated in livestock judging through FFA and raises either cattle and/or swine. Coaches were typically slightly to moderately confident in goats; moderately confident in sheep; and moderately to extremely confident in cattle and swine. Respondents were the least confident in evaluating goats overall. Estimating fat thickness in market animals was respondents' least confident specie-specific area and assessing volume in breeding animals was respondents' most confident. Female coaches are more likely to possess confidence in evaluating four criteria in goats and volume in breeding sheep. Older coaches are more likely to have confidence in evaluating growth in cattle. More coaching experience is likely to lead to greater overall species confidence in cattle, goats, sheep and swine.

Coaches' most typical methods of instruction include personal knowledge, visual live animal evaluation, and online videos. Participants are between very and extremely interested in all provided methods of instruction with online videos, a collegiate judging manual and attending a reasons-specific coaches' clinic/seminar showing the greatest interest. Participants want a seminar held in the summer for two days and are willing to travel up to 200 miles to attend. As age increased so did interest in DVDs. Coaches with more years of experience are more interested in sending students to livestock evaluation camps. Those who had judging experience in college also desired more DVD tools, online videos and a specie specific seminar/clinic.