Analysis of effective components on professional development of agricultural extension agents in Kermanshah Province in Iran

Professional development and improvement of the staff are designed to achieve goals of the extension organization or every organization for development of the knowledge, skills and abilities and to improve their job performance in the present and future. Extension organization is one of the active organizations of community in the agriculture sector, which has emphasized on the dissemination of technical innovations; therefore, the main purpose of the present study was analysis of effective components on professional development of agricultural extension agents in Kermanshah province in the west of Iran in 2008. All the agricultural extension agents (456 persons) in Kermanshah province formed the population of this study. This research was conducted in the framework of the applied approach with the methodology of a descriptive-survey research method. According to Morgan table, 210 people were chosen as the sample size and for suitable classification a stratified random sampling method was applied. Research tools included a questionnaire, and its validity was confirmed based on the collective opinion of the university professors and experts of Ramin and Tehran universities. Results showed that all the extension agents have been desired at high levels in all components of professional development in a way that the agents had very high percentages in all of the variables. Also factor analysis operating on five factors with about 51.31 percent explained variance.