Investigation of Effective Factors on Educational Needs of Rice Supervising Engineers in Agricultural Engineering and Technical Consulting Services Companies in Mazandaran Province, Iran

Abstract

One of the most important factors in the development of societies, consider to traning. Identification and training needs analysis, is a prerequisite for a successful educational system and determine the training needs is considered the first step of educational planning. The purpose of this study was to investigate Educational needs of engineers, rice supervisors Engineering agricultural engineering and technical consulting services companies in Mazandaran. The methodological approach of this study was descriptive- correlational. Statistical population of this research consisted of 186 rice supervisor engineers of Mazandaran province, and based on Cochran formula 113 people were selected randomly through proportional stratified sampling. Data collection tool was a questionnaire , whose validity was confirmed by a panel of experts, and its reliability was measured through Cronbach's alpha. Cronbach's alpha ranged from 0.75 to 0.96. for educational-professional needs assessment of agricultural extension agents was used from Burich model and according to the mean weight discrepancy score (MWDS) were rated. The results achieved from path analysis method indicate that the highest effect on educational needs was related to economic factors with the path coefficient of 0.231. In addition, information resources was also effective on the educational needs with the path coefficient of 0.171.