Analysis of Effectiveness  of Extension Education Activities on Promoting  Tobacco Growers' knowledge level in Mazandaran province with Modeling structural equation

Abbasi Rostami, Aliakbar; AhmadPour, Amir; Sharifzadeh, Mohamad Sharif

doi:10.22059/ijaedr.2016.60250

Analysis of Effectiveness of Extension Education Activities on Promoting Tobacco Growers' knowledge level in Mazandaran province with Modeling structural equation

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

¹ Researcher, Tirtash tobacco research institute, Department of extension, Galugah, Mazandaran1

² Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural Extension and Education, Sari Branch, Islamic Azad University, P.O. Box 48161-19318, Sari, Iran

³ Assistant Professor, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources

10.22059/ijaedr.2016.60250

Abstract

Promoting Farmers’ knowledge along with other production factors and facilities will lead farmers to achieve a desired and reasonable level in production process by properly and accurately benefiting from technology. This research sought to investigate the effectiveness of extension education activities on promoting tobacco growers' knowledge level in Mazandaran province. The study adopted a descriptive- correlational approach as its methodology. The statistical population of this research consisted of 1500 tobacco growers of Mazandaran province, and based on Morgan table, 306 people were randomly selected through proportional stratified sampling. The data collection tool was a questionnaire, whose validity was confirmed by a panel of experts, and its reliability was measured through Cronbach's alpha ranging from 0.77 to 0.94. The results showed that effectiveness of extension education activities on promoting tobacco growers' knowledge level is excellent 12%, good 28.2%, medium 39.4% and weak 20.5%. and the most effective factor on effectiveness of extension education activities on promoting tobacco growers' knowledge level was extension-education activities content with path coefficient of 0.325. In addition, extension-education activities compatibility with educational need was also effective on effectiveness of extension education activities on promoting tobacco growers' knowledge level with the path coefficient of 0.314.

Keywords