Abstract:
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays a vital role in agriculture
service delivery, which enables extension personnel to disseminate information and
advice to farmers. The Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) acts vital roles
through the front-line extension professional- Sub-Assistant Agriculture Officers
(SAAOs). It is thus critical to develop performance of SAAOs in using ICTs. However,
little known about ICT use to the job performance of SAAOs in extension service
delivery. Therefore, the key concern of this study was to assess the level of ICT use to
the performance of SAAOs. Attempts were also made to determine the factors that
contribute to ICT use as well as to their performance in agricultural extension services.
A theoretical model was developed based on Institutional, Social and Personal factors
(I-S-P) developed by Lewis et al. (2003) which illustrates ICT usage factors in case of
an organizational context. Data were collected from 159 SAAOs of seven upazilas of
Jashore district using structured interview schedule during 31
viii
th
July-22
August, 2019.
Data were analyzed by Partial Least Square-based Structural Equation Modeling (PLSSEM)
using
Smart
PLS
v2.0 M3. Results revealed that, two moderator variables e.g.,
perceived usefulness and extent of ICT use had positive significant influence on
SAAOs’ performance, and jointly explained 34% of the variance. Job facility and social
support were used as the predictor of perceived usefulness and only social support had
positive significant influence and explained 17.4% of variance. While self-efficacy,
inter-personal communication and perceived innovativeness were the three predictors
for extent of ICT use, all of them were found to be positively significant and explained
44.9% of variance. To conclude, this study sufficiently offered several practical and
theoretical recommendations about proper and effective structuring of use of ICTs in
agricultural extension service delivery and those would be helpful for the policy makers
or for further research.
Description:
A Thesis
Submitted to the Faculty of Agriculture,
Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF SCIENCE
IN
AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION
