Attitude towards Application of Distance Education in Agriculture and Allied Field - A Scale Development

The study was conducted to develop and standardize the reliable and valid scale, to measure attitude towards application of Distance Education in Agriculture and allied Field. Appropriate statistical methods. ‘Scale product method’ was used, which combines Thurston and Likert techniques. Twenty four (24) statements were selected for judgment; a panel of 50 judges was requested to assign the score for each statement on five point continuum. Based on the scale (median) and Q values, eight (8) statements were finally selected to constitute attitude scale to measure application of Distance Education in Agriculture and allied Field. It is an undeniable fact that majority of the people in the third world are illiterate. If we add to these the number of those who cannot continue their studies due to lack of money or distance from the educational institutions, the number of underprivileged would touch alarming figures. Conventional education system cannot cater to the needs of these people because of its limitations. Due to this, the governments of different countries have felt the need of a distance education as a substitute for formal education. In the filed of agriculture and rural development also, there is wide gap between actual requirement and availability of able human resources for agricultural research, education, extension, occupation and management. Realizing this, application of distance education has been advocated by the planners and administrators. Thus, before implementation of distance education in agricultural higher education, one should understand feeling of academicians and others towards application of distance education in agricultural higher education. Keeping this in view, an attempt was made to develop a scale to measure the attitude of academicians and others towards application of distance education in agriculture and allied field.