Agricultural education
Seyed Mohammad Javad Sobhani; Omid Jamshidi; Zahra Fozouni Ardekani
Abstract
In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the significance of virtual education in transforming higher education patterns. Consequently, the higher education system in agriculture, which relies on hands-on activities, requires a specific understanding of its audience’s behavior to enhance ...
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In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the significance of virtual education in transforming higher education patterns. Consequently, the higher education system in agriculture, which relies on hands-on activities, requires a specific understanding of its audience’s behavior to enhance learning outcomes. The current research, adopting a quantitative perspective and a causal approach, has analyzed students' behavior towards Learning Management Systems in higher agricultural education during the academic year 2023. The research instrument was a questionnaire based on the amalgamation of the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Technology Acceptance Model, the face validity of which was confirmed by university and industry experts, and its convergent and divergent validity confirmed with an AVE of 0.659to0.881. Additionally, the reliability of all research components was estimated to be satisfactory with an ordinal theta coefficient of 0.715to0.921 and a CR of 0.852 to 0.950. Data required from 385 students currently enrolled in public agricultural universities (N=9819) were collected using stratified random sampling and analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling. Research findings indicated that perceived ease of use has a positive and significant effect on perceived usefulness but does not affect the behavioral intention to use the LMS education system. Furthermore, other model-derived components, such as perceived usefulness, perceived control, and subjective norms, have a significant positive effect on the mediator behavioral intention, ultimately explaining 71 percent of the actual behavior dependent variable. Based on the results, recommendations were put forth to strengthen the effective components and improve accessibility to the Learning Management System.
Agricultural education
shahram mohammadzadeh; Esmail karamidehkordi
Abstract
One of the problems of universities in Iran is the lack of participation of faculty members in extension activities. The purpose was to investigate factors affecting the intention of Agricultural and Natural Resources Colleges’ Faculties (ANRCF) toward participation in Extension Services (ES). ...
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One of the problems of universities in Iran is the lack of participation of faculty members in extension activities. The purpose was to investigate factors affecting the intention of Agricultural and Natural Resources Colleges’ Faculties (ANRCF) toward participation in Extension Services (ES). This research was taken from both quantitative and qualitative paradigms and a survey conducted from March 2020 to March 2021. The statistical population was 110 ANRCF of Urmia University. 82 people were selected as sample. The research tool were interview and questionnaire. The questionaire was designed based on theory of planned behavior. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by 5 faculty members at Urmia University and its convergent validity was confirmed using AVE (0.52-0.73). The reliability of the questionnaire was calculated with the ordinal theta (0.71-0.90) and CR (0.81-0.95). Ordinal logistic regression results showed that: The intention of faculties to participate in ES is moderate influenced by three factors: age, trust to the farmers community, and behavioral control variables. To strengthen the participation of faculties to ES, some suggestions include: adding the extension task into the mission of the Ministry of Science; Signing a contract between the universities and the agricultural organization; Considering the material and spiritual motives; participating faculties in participatory approaches, online agricultural education, radio and television programs, and providing content for extension media.
Masoud Yazdanpanah; bahman khosravipour; yousof azadi
Abstract
The issue of unemployment and the increase in the number of university graduates is one of the most difficult challenges facing Iran. So that this issue has become one of the most significant problems mental for planners, policymakers, parents and young people, especially college graduates. Therefore, ...
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The issue of unemployment and the increase in the number of university graduates is one of the most difficult challenges facing Iran. So that this issue has become one of the most significant problems mental for planners, policymakers, parents and young people, especially college graduates. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare the power of two theories of planned behavior and social cognitive career theory in predicting agricultural students’ intention towards self-employment in Khuzestan Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University. The study population was undergraduate students of Khuzestan Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University (N=2233). After a screening process 23 questionnaires had to be removed due to inconsistencies and missing data. The statistical sample was 304 students that determined by Krejcie and Morgan table, and a random sampling method was used to collect data from students using questionnaire. The face validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by a panel of experts. The reliability of the main scales of the questionnaires was examined by teta coefficients, which ranged from 0.70 to 0.90, indicating the tool of study is reliable. The results of structural equation modeling showed that social cognitive career theory with 85 percent prediction of self-employment intention variable was more powerful than theory of planned behavior in predicting intention towards self-employment.
saeed Karimi; FAtemeh Sepahvand; Ahmad Salman Makreet
Abstract
In order to understand better entrepreneurial intentions and behaviors, we need to consider environmental factors, however, less attention has been paid to the effect of these factors on the individual behavior in the literature. Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), this study aimed to examine ...
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In order to understand better entrepreneurial intentions and behaviors, we need to consider environmental factors, however, less attention has been paid to the effect of these factors on the individual behavior in the literature. Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), this study aimed to examine the relationship between perceived university support and students’ entrepreneurial intentions in tow Persian-speaking countries namely Iran and Afghanistan. The study's population included 1250 undergraduate agriculture students at Bu-Ali Sina University (N=650) and Samangan University in Afghanistan (N=600) in 2019 academic year, which 452 of them were selected using Bartlet’s table and proportional stratified random sampling. Study data were collected through a standardized questionnaire. Validity of the questionnaire was approved based on the opinions of faculty members at Bu-Ali Sina University. The reliability of the research instrument was determined using Cronbach's alpha coefficients (in the range of 0.81 to 0.92). Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling and the partial least square (PLS) method. The results indicate that along with positive attitude and perceived behavioral control that are directly related to entrepreneurial intentions, university support also has an indirect but significant impact on shaping of entrepreneurial intention among students. The relative importance of the motivational factors (attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control) and its antecedent (university support) appears to be broadly similar in the two countries and add support to the applicability of the TPB model in predicting entrepreneurial intentions in non-western countries.
saeed karimi
Abstract
Entrepreneurship education is a fast growing area and a hot topic in colleges and universities all around the world, and its supposed benefits have been much praised by researchers and educators; nevertheless, the outcomes and effectiveness of entrepreneurship education programs have remained largely ...
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Entrepreneurship education is a fast growing area and a hot topic in colleges and universities all around the world, and its supposed benefits have been much praised by researchers and educators; nevertheless, the outcomes and effectiveness of entrepreneurship education programs have remained largely untested. Building on the theory of planned behavior, an ex-ante and ex-post survey was used to assess the impact of entrepreneurship education programs on students’ entrepreneurial intentions and also to explore the benefits of these programs. Data were collected by a questionnaire from a sample of 109 participants in entrepreneurship courses at four universities (Bu-Ali Sina, Kordestan, Shahrekord, Ilam). Entrepreneurship education had significant positive impacts on motivational factors (i.e., subjective norms, attitudes and perceived behavioral control) and students’ entrepreneurial intentions. Moreover, from the three entrepreneurship education-related benefits (i.e., learning, inspiration and resources) learning proved to be associated with the increase in perceived behavioral control, entrepreneurial attitudes intentions. In total, this study shows the theory of planned behavior can provide a useful framework to assess the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education.
Abstract
Studying determinants of entrepreneurial intention and behavior represents a central topic in entrepreneurship literature. Although creativity is often seen as a core part of entrepreneurship process, its role has not been explored by using a valid theoretical framework until now. Drawing on the theory ...
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Studying determinants of entrepreneurial intention and behavior represents a central topic in entrepreneurship literature. Although creativity is often seen as a core part of entrepreneurship process, its role has not been explored by using a valid theoretical framework until now. Drawing on the theory of planned behavior, this study investigates the role of creativity in shaping and developing entrepreneurial intention and its antecedents. The statistical population of this research consisted of 1450 senior agricultural students at four public universities in the west of Iran (N=1450). According to Daniel’s formula, a sample of 300 students was chosen through random stratified sampling method. Data were collected using a questionnaire survey. Content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by a panel of experts. Also, reliability of the research instrument was determined using ordinal Theta coefficient (θ =0.81-0.87). The results of structural equation modeling indicated that perceived behavioral control and attitudes toward entrepreneurship were significantly related to entrepreneurial intention, while the relationship between subjective norms and entrepreneurial intentions was not statistically significant. The results also showed that creativity was significantly related to attitudes toward entrepreneurship and perceived behavioral control. Moreover, structural equation modeling showed that creativity indirectly related to entrepreneurial intentions via perceived behavioral control and attitudes toward entrepreneurship. Findings highlight the role of creativity in developing entrepreneurial intention and contribute to the Theory of Planned Behavior and have some implications for entrepreneurship education.
Abstract
Early research which focused on the direct effects of personality traits on entrepreneurial intentions and behaviours have been criticized for their low predictive capacity. Recently researchers suggest that personality characteristics may affect entrepreneurial intentions and behaviours via entrepreneurial ...
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Early research which focused on the direct effects of personality traits on entrepreneurial intentions and behaviours have been criticized for their low predictive capacity. Recently researchers suggest that personality characteristics may affect entrepreneurial intentions and behaviours via entrepreneurial perceptions and motivational factors. The primary purpose of this study was to incorporate an important personality trait (namely, proactive personality) into the theory of planned behavior to examine the extent to which motivational factors (namely, attitudes toward entrepreneurship and perceived behavioral control) mediate the effects of students’ proactive personality on entrepreneurial intentions. Data was collected using a questionnaire survey from a sample of 300 senior agricultural students at four public universities in the west of Iran. The content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by a panel of experts. The reliability of the research instrument was determined using Ordinal Theta coefficient (θ =0.75-0.82). Structural equation modeling and bootstrap procedure were used to analyze the data. Results indicated that attitudes toward entrepreneurship and perceived behavioral control fully mediate the relationship of student subjective norms, proactivity and entrepreneurial intentions. The findings have implications for explaining attitudes toward entrepreneurship and perceived behavioral control and direct attention on proactivity as an essential competence in the entrepreneurial process. Theoretical and practical implications for entrepreneurial intentions and education are discussed
