Extension Professional Staffs’ Attitude toward Participatory Approach of Extension Activities and Rural Development

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to assess the extension workers’ attitude toward Participatory Technology Development (PTD). The population of this study consisted of all 282 professional staffs from provincial extension organization in the province of West Azarbiajan, Iran. A three parts questionnaire was developed to collect needed data for the study. The result showed that the majority of extension workers’ attitude toward PTD was classified as “positive”. This indicates that the professional staffs have a great potential to succeed in fulfilling the goals of PTD. However, the majority of the professional staffs’ involvement with PTD has been characterized as “week”. The result of the linear multivariate regression indicated that 7.6% (R2=0.076) of the variance in the staffs’ attitude toward PTD could be explained by their level of individual involvement in participatory approach. This indicated that there are other variables that affect the variance in staffs’ attitude toward PTD.