Item Analysis Methodology to Measure Knowledge of Farmer's on Eco-Friendly Farm Technology in Rice Cultivation

Abstract

The increased pressure to maintain high level of rice output for consumption has resulted in increased use of pesticides on rice fields which leads destruction of rice ecosystem. It has become imperative to develop an effective and holistic system of tackling pests to make it more environmental friendly, economically viable and socially acceptable to farmers which can be achieved through eco-friendly technologies, so it is very important to assess the knowledge level of stakeholders in eco-friendly rice farming in order to identify gap in adoption. Hence a study was designed to develop a standardized test using test construction methodology adopting item analysis procedure, pilot tested with 26 farmer members from non-sample area. The final test consisted of 21 questions having difficulty index value in the range of 20 to 80 and discrimination index value above 0.10 was retained and used to measure the knowledge of stakeholders in eco-friendly rice farming.