Vol. 10, Special Issue 11 (2021)

Author(s):
Ganapathy Ramu M and M Asokhan

Abstract:
Conservation Agriculture (CA) is relatively a new concept, and its technologies were not penetrated among the farming community across the State. However, a change in attitude of farmers may influence the uptake of CA practices at farmers’ field. Attitude is a behavioural construct that cannot be measured by a single variable, hence there arises a need for developing a standardized instrument for its measurement. The present study has been conducted to develop a reliable and valid scale to measure the farmer’s attitude towards CA practices. A method of Equal-Appearing Intervals was used to construct the attitude scale. A total of 82 attitude statements about conservation agriculture practices expressing varied degree of favourableness were collected and modified based on the Edward’s criteria. These statements were subjected to judge’s opinion by agricultural extension scientists of State Agricultural Universities and ICAR Research Institutes and field level extension workers. Based on expert’s response a standardized scale has been developed with 10 statements which are having universe of content, uniform distribution of scale values along the psychological continuum and high “scale values” and lower “Q” values and more or less equal number of favourable and unfavourable attitude items.