Journal ID : AMA-01-01-2023-11929
[This article belongs to Volume - 53, Issue - 12]
Total View : 373

Title : Development of a scale to measure impact of Transfer of Integrated Crop Management Technologies developed by M.P.K.V., Rahuri

Abstract :

Scale development and validation are critical to much of the work in the social, and behavioural sciences. For systematic and accurate measurement of impact of Transfer of Integrated Crop Management Technologies developed by MPKV Rahuri under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) on its beneficiaries the scale was constructed by following the [14] of summated ratings suggested by (citation) Edward. Out of the three phases, in the first phase 163 items were generated for covering all aspects of socio-economic impact of Transfer of Integrated Crop Management Technologies developed by M.P.K.V., Rahuri on beneficiaries collected from the various sources such as literatures, extension personnel’s, scientists from agricultural universities and experts from KVK’s. These were segregated under three sub-headings namely economic impact, social impact and agricultural impact and the validity of their content is assessed. In the second phase, the scale was constructed by item selection, pre-testing the questions, administering the survey, reducing the number of items, and understanding how many factors the scale captures. In item selection 163 items were sent to 100 judges comprising of senior faculties and experts in the field of agriculture. After analysis of relevancy preference score given by expert and were edited by following the 14 informal criteria suggested by [4]. One hundred and thirty-three items having mean score value being equal to or higher than the overall mean score was selected for item analysis. These items selected through judge’s opinion were administered to a random sample of 30 farmers from non-sample area. The items are rated by the farmers on five-point continuum vis-a-vis strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, strongly disagree. Based on total individual score, the judges were arranged in descending order. Upper and lower 25 per cent of the judges were used as criteria groups to evaluate the individual statements. The critical ratio i.e., the t-value was calculated, and items were selected on the basis ‘t’ value equal to or greater than 1.75. Ninety-four items were selected after ‘t’ value calculation. In the third phase, we carried out scale evaluation, tested and checked the reliability the number of dimensions and their reliability and validity is assessed. The scale with 94 items thus developed was administrated to the 30 farmers who were neither previously interviewed nor had chance to come in the final sample. After period of 15 days the same 30 farmers undertook the test. Thus, we obtained two sets of scores with a very high correlation (r = 0.95) which indicated that the scale is highly reliable. The content validity of the scale was determined through a group of experts as suggested by [11] and it was ensured that items covered the various aspects of socio-economic impact.

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