Some of the personal and functional characteristics of agricultural extension workers and their relation to the level of their performance in Babylon Province

Abstract

The aim of the current study was to determine the job performance level of agricultural extension workers in Babylon province generally to estimate the level of job performance in each field of the research and to find the correlation between the level of job performance and some personal and functional characteristics in Babylon province. The research community were included the agricultural extension workers in the Directorate of Agriculture of Babylon province and the agricultural divisions that belonged to it. The random sample of 50% of the total population of (8) agricultural people was removed from them, in which (298) staff members were assigned a random sample of (152) employees. The questionnaire form was used as a tool for collecting data from respondents, which consists of two parts; the first includes questions related to the measurement of personal and functional characteristics (age, duration of employment, duration of extension service and Information related to the extension work), the second part includes a measure of the agricultural extension workers performance within the agricultural divisions. The scale was consisted of 102 items divided into two fields: the first field consisted of 74 items (performance of the extension work) and the second field consisted of 28 items (rural work and service of farmers). The answers for the previous items through an index were with five level (always, often, sometimes, rarely, unknown), with a corresponding numerical values (5, 4, 3, 2, 1). Stability was computed by split – half method and reached (0.77) in general. The results of the research showed that the general level of job performance of workers in agricultural extension average tends to high, and that the job performance level in the field of performance of extension work and work in the rural and agricultural service was high and tends to medium, Also ,the results showed that there was a significant correlation between the indicative job performance and the following variables: (years of job service, years of extension service, number of courses, and development), and the variables give an explanation for 46.6% of the changes in the performance. The researcher recommended that the Directorates responsible for training the staff in order to prepare them and raise the efficiency of their job performance in preparing training courses on the content of their material in the fields of extension work carried out by the workers in agricultural extension taking into consideration the variables that showed a relationship of significant correlation in the preparation of training courses.