ASSESSMENT OF SUB-ASSISTANT AGRICULTURE OFFICERS’ LEVEL OF ICT USE IN RELATION TO THEIR PERFORMANCE IN AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICE

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.