Scale Construction to Measure the Attitude of Farmers towards Agricultural Diversification
Surendra Kumar Rai *
College of Agriculture, Balaghat, JNKVV, Jabalpur, India.
Shailendra Bhalawe
College of Agriculture, Balaghat, JNKVV, Jabalpur, India.
G. R. Patel
Department ofExtension Education, Navsari Agriculture University, Navsari (Guj), India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Attitude plays an important role in persuasion of one’s behaviour in respect to a particular psychological object. The attitude of farmers’ may influence their decision to adopt different practices to diversify their farms. Therefore, the investigation was carried out to expand a reliable and suitable mechanism to measure the farmers’ attitude towards Agricultural Diversification in their areas. The “Likert’s summated rating approach” was followed for a step by step procedure of developing uniform attitude degree. A total 67 statements reflecting belief of the farmers towards agricultural diversification were collected and out of which, 50 statements were retained after editing. The statements were sent to eighty Judges to judge its proper relevancy. Based on the relevancy test of 50 statements, only 35 statements were selected. The 18 statements were retained after the‘t’ test where 11 were positive and 7 were negative statements. The reliability of the scale was confirmed by the use of split half method while validity was studied by content validity. The reliability coefficient was found to be 0.82 which showed the reliability of the scale. Therefore other academicians and researchers can be using this identical magnitude with or without modifications to measure attitude of farmers headed for Agricultural Diversification.
Keywords: Attitude, agricultural diversification, item analysis, reliability, validity