THE KNOWLEDGE LEVEL OF EMPLOYEES WORKING IN NINEVEH AGRICULTURE DIRECTORATE WITH THE VIRAL DISEASES SOLANCEAE FAMILY

Abstract

The research aims to determine the knowledge level of employees working in the Nineveh Agriculture Directorate for the viral diseases solanaceae family, finding differences in the knowledge level of them according to some personal and functional factors: age, gender, educational attainment, specialization, job title, service’s duration, number of honors, training courses, years of experience with viral diseases, number of infections that exceeded and sources of information regarding viral diseases. Data was collected using a paper mail questionnaire and by internet technique; the first part include: independent factors scale, while the second part include: a test of knowledge level consists of 31 paragraphs distributed on 6 areas: Methods of virus transmission, The symptoms that appear on infected plants, Methods of virus diagnosis, viral diseases, Changes that occur in the tissues of plants infected with the virus, and Methods for protecting plants from viral diseases. Content validity & extreme comparison have been used to test validity; reliability coefficient has been tested using Kuder Richardson 0.78; also the paragraphs discrimination & difficulty coefficient have been found. The research sample consists of 113 employee; data were analyzed using: Mean; Kruskal Wallis; Mann Whitney test. Results show that 56.63 % of employees have high knowledge; a higher knowledge level in methods of virus transmission. The result shows that there are no significant variances in knowledge level according to all factors except specialization.