Development of a Scale to Measure the Attitude of Farmers towards Crop Insurance Scheme

Abstract

A scale was developed to measure the "attitude of farmers towards Crop Insurance Scheme". Based on the review of literature and discussion with the expert's, 48 statements were enlisted. The Likert's summated rating scale was followed in the construction of scale. The list of 48 statements were sent to a panel of 250 experts with the request, to critically evaluate each statement for its relevancy to measure the attitude of farmers towards Crop Insurance Scheme. Out of 250 experts selected for the scale construction, 74 experts responded in time and at the earliest. Based on their judgment an aggregate of 30 statements was selected by finding the Relevancy Weightage (RW). Accordingly, statements having relevancy percentage >75, relevancy weightage >0.75 and mean relevancy score >3.00 were considered for the item analysis. In item analysis, the selected 30 statements were administered on 40 farmers in the non-sample area. Finally, a total of 24 statements were selected for the study, based on the ‘t’ values (> 1.75) resulted from the item analysis and were included in the final scale. The ‘r’ value of the scale was found to be 0.81, which was significant at one per cent level indicating the high reliability. Hence, the scale developed was found to reliable and valid. Thus, the instrument developed to measure the attitude of farmers towards Crop Insurance Scheme is useful in the similar studies.