Development of a Scale to Measure Farmers’ Attitude towards Crop Residue Management Practices in Rajasthan, India
R Amulya *
Department of Agricultural Extension and Communication, College of Agriculture, SKRAU, Bikaner-334006, India.
R. K. Verma
Department of Agricultural Extension and Communication, College of Agriculture, SKRAU, Bikaner-334006, India.
Manmeet Kaur
Department of Agricultural Extension and Communication, College of Agriculture, SKRAU, Bikaner-334006, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Understanding farmers’ attitudes is essential for designing effective extension strategies and promoting sustainable crop residue management. This study developed and standardised a valid and reliable Likert-type scale to measure farmers’ attitudes towards crop residue management practices in Rajasthan. Initially, 92 attitude statements were generated through a literature review and expert consultation. After editing, 70 statements were submitted to 100 experts, of whom 48 responded. Based on the prescribed thresholds of relevancy percentage greater than 75%, relevancy weightage greater than 0.80, and mean relevancy score greater than 4, 29 statements were retained. These statements were administered to 30 non-sample farmers for item analysis using the extreme-group method. The upper and lower 33.33% of respondents formed the criterion groups, and 20 statements with t-values greater than 1.75 were selected for the final scale. The final instrument comprised 13 positive, one neutral, and six negative statements. The split-half reliability coefficient was 0.83, while the Spearman–Brown corrected reliability coefficient was 0.91, indicating strong internal consistency in the development sample. Content validity was established through a literature review and expert judgement. The resulting scale offers a structured means of assessing farmers’ attitudes towards crop residue management and may support descriptive research, extension planning, programme evaluation, and the identification of behavioural constraints. Further validation with larger and more geographically diverse samples would strengthen evidence regarding its broader measurement performance.
Keywords: Crop residue management, farmer attitudes, attitude scale, Likert summated rating, item analysis, content validity, split-half reliability, sustainable agriculture, extension planning.