Construction and Validation of a Scale to Study the Farmers' Knowledge of Innovative Techniques

In this research paper the construction and validation of a scale to measure the knowledge for the aopters and non adopters of Uttar Pradesh Diversified Agricultural Support Project (UPDASP) was developed and designed. The scale filled the need expressed due to investigation as a research instrument that has sound psychometric properties. Change in technological development can be observed in terms of knowledge gained by individual. It was believed that unless one has knowledge of the kind of the programme being implemented, it will not make one look for the programme, as to develop the required attitude for that. Therefore, gaining knowledge that related to personal profile of the respondent was one of the pre requisite for the subsequent development. It was a challenge to develop a scale to measure existing knowledge of respondents about Uttar Pradesh Diversified Support Project (UPDASP). Covering all aspect of these challenges a study was conducted in western Uttar Pradesh. An interview schedule was used to collect data from a sample of 200 farmers. Out of 200 farmers 100 were adoptores or beneficiaries and other 100 were non-adopters or non beneficiaries of Uttar Pradesh Diversified Support Project (UPDASP). For development of knowledge scale fourteen open ended question were made to ask the respondents with taking proper care covering all aspect of Uttar Pradesh Diversified Agricultural Support Project. To gain relevancy of the questions the item difficulty and item discrimination test was processed with a mathematical formula. After completing the process only ten questions were found to be retained and rest four were discarded. Retained question were used in developing scale of knowledge after passing reliability and validity test with the help of split half technique, Karl Pearson formula and "t" test of statistical importance.