The Roles of Area Specialized Positions as Perceived by Mississippi Extension Personnel.

This study involved determining Mississippi Cooperative Extension Service personnel's perception of (1) the role of extension; (2) the role of area specialists, and (3) the role of area agents. Then to determine the relationship between a number of independent variables, i.e., perceived role of extension, job classification, sex, academic degree attainment, tenure, race, evaluation rating and work location and Mississippi Cooperative Extension Service personnel's perception of the role of area specialists and area agents. A mailed questionnaire was used to measure Mississippi Cooper­ ative Extension Service personnel's perception of the role of exten­ sion, the role of area specialists and the role of area agents. Each respondent was scored on a 1 to 5 scale. The assigned score value of 1 represented a "traditional" perception and the assigned value of 5 represented an "innovative" perception. A composite score was then computed for all respondents with regard to their perception of the role of extension, their perception of the role of area specialists and their perception of the role of area agents. The respondents' scores for the role of extension were used as one of the independent variables. The respondents' scores for the role of area specialists and area agents and a combination of these scores were used as the dependent variables. Multiple regression analysis was used to indicate what portion of the variance for the dependent variables had been accounted for by viii the independent variables considered. Analysis of variance was used to determine if a statistically significant relationship existed between the combination of independent variables and each dependent variable. A t test was applied to each independent variable with regard to its relationship to each dependent variable. Standardized partial regression coefficients were computed for each independent variable to obtain some measure of the relative influence each independent variable had upon each dependent variable. It was found that a majority of Mississippi Cooperative Extension Service personnel tended to have an "innovative” perception of the role of extension. Their perception of the role of area specialists was only slightly weighted toward what is termed "innovative" and they are fairly evenly distributed between a "traditional" and an "innovative" perception of the role of area agents. A statistically significant relationship was found to exist between (1) Mississippi Cooperative Extension Service personnel's perception of the role of extension and their perception of the role of area specialists; (2) Mississippi Cooperative Extension Service personnel's job classification and the perception of the role of the area specialized positions; (3) Mississippi Cooperative Extension Service personnel's race and their perception of the role of the area specialized positions. When all independent variables were considered together, a statistically significant relationship was found to exist between these and Mississippi Cooperative Extension Service personnel's perception of the role of the area specialized positions.

本研究包括确定密西西比合作推广服务人员对以下方面的看法：（1）推广的作用；（2）区域专家的作用；（3）区域代理人的作用。然后确定一些自变量之间的关系，这些自变量包括：对推广作用的认知、工作类别、性别、学位获得情况、任期、种族、评估等级和工作地点，以及密西西比合作推广服务人员对区域专家和区域代理人作用的看法。通过邮寄问卷来衡量密西西比合作推广服务人员对推广作用、区域专家作用和区域代理人作用的看法。每位受访者按1到5分进行评分。1分代表“传统”看法，5分代表“创新”看法。然后计算所有受访者关于他们对推广作用的看法、对区域专家作用的看法以及对区域代理人作用的看法的综合得分。受访者对推广作用的评分被用作自变量之一。受访者对区域专家和区域代理人作用的评分以及这些评分的组合被用作因变量。多元回归分析用于表明考虑的自变量解释了因变量方差的哪一部分。方差分析用于确定自变量组合与每个因变量之间是否存在统计学上显著的关系。对每个自变量与每个因变量的关系进行t检验。计算每个自变量的标准化偏回归系数，以获得每个自变量对每个因变量相对影响的某种度量。研究发现，大多数密西西比合作推广服务人员倾向于对推广作用有“创新”的看法。他们对区域专家作用的看法只是略微倾向于所谓的“创新”，而他们对区域代理人作用的看法在“传统”和“创新”之间分布相当均匀。发现以下方面之间存在统计学上显著的关系：（1）密西西比合作推广服务人员对推广作用的看法和他们对区域专家作用的看法；（2）密西西比合作推广服务人员的工作类别和对区域专业岗位作用的看法；（3）密西西比合作推广服务人员的种族和他们对区域专业岗位作用的看法。当综合考虑所有自变量时，发现这些自变量与密西西比合作推广服务人员对区域专业岗位作用的看法之间存在统计学上显著的关系。