Determination of Texas county Extension agent inservice training needs relevant to community resource development

Abstract

The major purpose of this research was to determine the perceived level of competence possessed by Texas county Extension agents relative to the program of community resource development to the end that guidelines could be formulated for preparing personnel to assist communities in the development of their resources. In order to achieve the foregoing purpose, the following objectives served to provide direction for the study: (a) to identify community resource development concepts fundamental to the tasks of county Extension agents; (b) to determine the extent to which Texas county Extension agents believed they possessed competence in fundamental community resource development concepts, and their ranking of importance of each of the fundamental concepts; (c) to determine the relationship between the importance ranking of community resource development concepts by a national jury of experts and the importance ranking of community resource development concepts by Texas county Extension agents; and (d) to determine the association between selected demographic and personal characteristics of Texas county Extension agents and their perceived community resource development competencies and their importance ranking of community resource development concepts. Two instruments were utilized in this research. The first instrument was submitted to a national jury of experts to identify 15 fundamental community resource development concepts. The second instrument was designed (a) to determine Texas county Extension agent importance and competence rankings of the 15 community resource development concepts, and (b) to determine the association between selected agent demographic and personal characteristics and agent importance and competence rankings of the concepts. Returns from respondents were statistically analyzed, and significance was checked at the .05 level. ...