A Scale to Measure the Level of Management Orientation of the Members of Farmer Producer Company with Reference to Potato Production in Assam, India

Abstract

In the absence of a suitable scale to measure the management orientation of potato growers in relation to potato planning, potato production and potato marketing in Assam, there was a need to construct a management orientation scale. Therefore, effort was made to construct a scale to measure the level of management orientation of the members of the Farmer Producer Company with reference to potato production in Assam. A scale was developed with Likert’s summated rating technique. A list of 90 statements resulted after edition of 110 statements as per the fourteen criteria suggested by Thurstone and Chave. Statements were sent to 80 extension specialist working in various field of Assam Agricultural University for the critical evaluation of statements on a 3 point continuum. Based on the responses received from 60 out of 80 judges, the relevancy percentage (RP), Relevancy Weightage (RW) and Mean Relevancy Scores (MRS) were estimated. 74 items with RP > 60, RW > 0.60 and overall MRS > 2.0 were considered for item analysis. These items were administrated to 40 farmers for item analysis and items with ‘t’ value equal or greater than 1.75 were selected and those with ‘t’ value below 1.75 were rejected. Out of 74 statements, 30 statements were retained on the final scale through t-test item analysis. Thus, the instrument developed to measure the level of management orientation of the members of farmer producer company with reference to potato production in Assam consists of 20 positive and 10 negative statements. The dependability coefficient was determined using Rulon's formula and it was 0.8994. As a result, the developed scale was proven to be highly reliable. The scale developed to measure the level of management orientation of the members of Farmer Producer Company with reference to potato production in Assam is found to be reliable and can be utilized by researchers in similar studies. This scale will be very advantageous and convenient for researchers to examine the management orientation of potato growers in relation to potato planning, potato production and potato marketing.