UPHESC Assistant Professor Agricultural Extension PYQs

Concept: e-Readiness is the degree to which an individual/community is prepared to use ICTs – affordability, skills, access, infrastructure and policy support.

1. e-Extension is the use of ICT to deliver extension services.
2. e-readiness is measured before planning e-extension or e-governance projects.

Short trick: Ready to use 'e' = e-Readiness.

Concept: Colour has three properties (Munsell): hue (the colour name), value (lightness/darkness) and intensity or chroma (brightness/purity).

1. 'Contract' (contrast) is a principle of design/layout, not a property of colour itself.

Short trick: H-V-I: Hue, Value, Intensity.

Concept: In Kolb's experiential learning cycle, the move from Concrete Experience (CE) to Reflective Observation (RO) corresponds to the diverging style.

1. Diverging = CE + RO; Assimilating = RO + AC (abstract conceptualisation).
2. Converging = AC + AE (active experimentation); Accommodating = AE + CE.

Short trick: Feel + Watch = Diverge; Watch + Think = Assimilate; Think + Do = Converge; Do + Feel = Accommodate.

Concept: Pedagogy (Greek paid = child, agogos = leader) is the art and science of teaching children.

1. Andragogy (Malcolm Knowles) – teaching adults; extension work follows andragogy.
2. Heutagogy – self-determined learning.

Short trick: Ped = child (as in paediatrics); Andr = man/adult.

Concept: CPM (Critical Path Method, DuPont 1957) is activity-oriented: it uses deterministic time estimates for each activity to find the longest (critical) path.

1. PERT (US Navy, Polaris project 1958) is event-oriented and uses three probabilistic time estimates.
2. CPM also deals with time–cost trade-off.

Short trick: CPM – Activity; PERT – Event.

Concept: Kerlinger: research design has two basic purposes – to provide answers to research questions and to control variance.

1. Control of variance follows the 'MAX-MIN-CON' principle: maximise experimental (systematic) variance, minimise error variance, control extraneous variance.
2. So (c) 'minimise variance of variables' and (d) 'maximise variance of extraneous variables' are wrong.

Short trick: Design = Answer the question + Control variance (MAX-MIN-CON).

Concept: A focus group should be small enough for everyone to talk yet large enough for varied views – about 6 to 10 participants (5–10), with at least 2–3 groups per category so that patterns can be compared.

1. 10–15 or 15–20 members make the group unwieldy; 1–5 is too small for group interaction.
2. A single group is never enough – findings must be cross-checked across groups.

Short trick: FGD: 'single-digit' group size, a few groups.

Concept: Luther Gulick: organisation is the formal structure of authority through which work subdivisions are arranged, defined and co-ordinated for the defined objective.

1. SHG, co-operative society and enterprise are particular kinds of bodies, not the general term defined here.

Short trick: Structure of authority = Organisation (the 'O' of POSDCORB).

Concept: Span of management (span of control) is the number of subordinates a manager can supervise effectively.

1. V.A. Graicunas showed relationships rise steeply with the number of subordinates; classical writers suggested about 5–6.
2. Chain of command – line of authority from top to bottom; departmentalisation – grouping of jobs.

Short trick: Span = how wide a manager's 'arms' reach.

Concept: Extension aims at changes in knowledge (things known), skill (things done) and attitude (things felt).

1. Knowledge – things known (cognitive).
2. Attitude – things felt (affective).
3. Skill – things done (psychomotor).

Short trick: K-S-A: Known, Skilled/done, Attitude/felt.

Concept: By growth and innovation, small firms are classed as: glamorous (high growth + high innovation), ambitious (high growth, lower innovation), economic core (moderate) and resource-constrained (low growth, limited by resources).

1. High growth together with high innovation = glamorous firm.

Short trick: Glamour = fast growth + new ideas.

Concept: Rogers: diffusion is a special type of communication – one concerned with the spread of messages that are new ideas.

1. Hence diffusion is a subset of communication.
2. Adoption is an individual's decision; diffusion is the spread of the innovation in the social system.

Short trick: Communication ⊃ Diffusion (new ideas only).

Concept: PRA tools are grouped as space-related, time-related and relation-related. Cause–effect (problem tree) diagrams show relationships, so they are relation-related.

1. Space-related – social map, resource map, transect walk.
2. Time-related – timeline, trend analysis, seasonal calendar, daily routine.
3. Relation-related – cause-effect diagram, Venn diagram, flow diagram, matrix ranking.

Short trick: Cause → effect = a relation.

Concept: The Draft National Policy for Women 2016 lists seven priority areas: health incl. food security & nutrition; education; economy; governance & decision making; violence against women; enabling environment; environment & climate change.

1. Women-friendly ICT is not a separate priority area – technology/ICT is covered under 'enabling environment'.
2. So (a), (b), (c), (e) are priority areas.

Short trick: 7 areas: H-E-E-G-V-E-E (Health, Education, Economy, Governance, Violence, Enabling env., Environment).

Concept: Studies on women and technology identify three major areas where technology affects women: economic (employment, income), social (status, roles, decision making) and health (drudgery, workload, occupational hazards).

1. Drudgery-reducing farm tools, for example, change women's income, social role and health together.
2. Psychological and cultural effects follow from these three main aspects.

Short trick: Technology touches women's Earning, Status and Health – E-S-H.

Concept: Gender budgeting (Council of Europe definition) is a gender-based assessment of budgets, restructuring revenues and expenditures to promote gender equality.

1. India introduced a Gender Budget Statement in the Union Budget in 2005-06.
2. Gender analysis studies roles/needs of men and women; gender sensitivity is awareness of these differences.

Short trick: Revenue + expenditure = budget → gender budgeting.

Concept: The Grow More Food Enquiry Committee (V.T. Krishnamachari, 1952) recommended an integrated approach to rural life, leading to the Community Development Programme on 2 October 1952 (55 projects).

1. Balwantrai Mehta Committee (1957) reviewed CDP/NES and recommended Panchayati Raj.
2. National Extension Service followed in 1953.

Short trick: GMF Enquiry 1952 → CDP 2 Oct 1952 → NES 1953 → Mehta 1957.

Concept: In the USA, extension is understood as 'extension education' – out-of-school education of rural people (Cooperative Extension Service, Smith-Lever Act 1914).

1. Germany – Beratung (advisory work); Spain/Latin America – capacitación (capacitation/training).
2. Netherlands – voorlichting (lighting the path); France – vulgarisation (simplification); Austria – Förderung (furthering).

Short trick: USA = Extension Education (land-grant universities teach).

Concept: Sugata Mitra's 'Hole in the Wall' experiment (Kalkaji, New Delhi, 1999) showed children could teach themselves to use a computer with no adult help – he named this Minimally Invasive Education.

1. It later grew into the idea of SOLE (Self-Organised Learning Environments) and won the TED Prize 2013.

Short trick: Hole in the wall → Sugata Mitra.

Concept: Co-ordination is the orderly synchronisation and unification of the actions of group members towards a common goal (Mooney & Reiley: 'the first principle of organisation').

1. Co-operation is voluntary willingness of people to help each other; co-ordination is a deliberate managerial act.
2. Controlling compares performance with standards.

Short trick: Synchronise + unify = Co-ordinate.