UPHESC Assistant Professor Agricultural Extension PYQs

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.

Concept: The research question defines the scope of a study – what will be studied; design, sampling and statistics are then chosen to answer it.

1. Research design decides how it will be studied.
2. Statistical design/methods decide how data will be analysed.

Short trick: Question = WHAT; Design = HOW.

Concept: Predictability is the degree of certainty with which the expected benefits/results of an innovation can be foreseen before adoption.

1. Trialability – can be tried on a small scale.
2. Observability – results are visible to others.
3. Compatibility – consistency with existing values, experience and needs.

Short trick: Predict = know beforehand → certainty of benefit.

Concept: Attitude is measured on a scale (e.g., Likert/Thurstone scores) and can take any value in a range, so it is treated as a continuous variable.

1. Family size – discrete (whole numbers).
2. Marital status and religion – categorical (nominal) variables.

Short trick: Scale score = continuous; head count = discrete; category = nominal.

Concept: A survey studies a large number of units at one time to describe a population – its strength is extensive (wide) coverage.

1. In-depth study is the aim of case study.
2. Testing theory/establishing cause-effect links is the aim of experimental research.

Short trick: Survey = wide; case study = deep; experiment = cause.

Concept: An experiment manipulates an independent variable to test a predicted effect, so a hypothesis must be stated beforehand.

1. Biographical, interpretative and case-study research are mostly exploratory/qualitative – hypotheses may emerge from them rather than precede them.

Short trick: No hypothesis, no experiment.

Concept: Karl Pearson's coefficient of correlation 'r' measures the degree of linear relationship between two quantitative (measurable) variables; −1 ≤ r ≤ +1.

1. Two qualitative attributes – coefficient of association/contingency (Yule's Q, χ²-based).
2. Ranks – Spearman's rank correlation.

Short trick: r = two measured variables (height–weight, fertiliser–yield).

Concept: AKIS = Agricultural Knowledge and Information System (Röling, FAO–World Bank 2000): the network of research, extension, education and farmers that generate, exchange and use knowledge.

1. It replaced the linear 'research → extension → farmer' (TOT) view.
2. Later broadened into the Agricultural Innovation System (AIS).

Short trick: AKIS – the 'S' is System.

Concept: A community is a group of people living in a definite place (locality) with community sentiment; its characteristics are locality, community sentiment, naturalness (it grows spontaneously), stability/permanence, likeness and wider ends.

1. Size is not an essential aspect – a community may be a small hamlet or a large city.
2. Place (locality), naturalness and stability are standard characteristics.

Short trick: Community = Place + Sentiment + Natural + Stable; size does not matter.

Concept: Prof. Anil K. Gupta (IIM Ahmedabad) started the Honey Bee Network in 1988–89 to document and spread grassroots innovations and traditional knowledge.

1. Related bodies: SRISTI (1993), GIAN (1997) and National Innovation Foundation (2000).
2. Anil Agarwal founded the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

Short trick: Honey bee takes pollen without harming the flower and cross-pollinates – Anil Gupta.

Concept: The Village Knowledge Centres (Information Village Research Project) were started by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in Puducherry in 1998.

1. ITC (Imperial Tobacco Company) – e-Choupal (2000).
2. EID Parry – Indiagriline; Nagarjuna Group – Kisan Kendras/iKisan.

Short trick: VKC – MSSRF – Puducherry; e-Choupal – ITC.