Educator–Learner Homophily Effect on Participants’ Adoption of Agribusiness Recordkeeping Practices

Abstract

Homophily is the tendency of individuals to be attracted to and associate with people who share similar sociodemographic, behavioral, and intrapersonal characteristics. Homophily plays a significant role when introducing innovations to create behavioral change. Understanding the educator–learner homophily effect is important to introduce and diffuse innovations efficiently and effectively. A quasi-experimental design was used to test the effect of educator–learner homophily on technology adoption in agriculture. Researchers showed one of four instructional videos about agribusiness recordkeeping practices to 238 Guatemalan female farmers. After the video instruction, the participants were given agribusiness logbooks to track farm sales and expenses. Initially, literate participants were more than four times as likely to adopt agribusiness recordkeeping practices than illiterate participants. Logistic regression determined the effects of the trainer’s gender and nationality on the participants’ likelihoods of adopting agribusiness recordkeeping practices at 6- and 21-weeks post-training. The 21-week logistic regression model was statistically significant; participants who received training from a female instructor were 0.441 times less likely to adopt and maintain agribusiness recordkeeping practices over the long-term. Nationality was not associated with the likelihood of adopting recordkeeping as an agribusiness practice. Program administrators should consider trainers’ perceived credibility and participants’ cultural norms when planning agribusiness management training programs with topics having limited immediate benefit.