Reply for earlier blog on ....CHANGES NEEDED ....

Dear Dr. Saravanan
Thank you for your mail and the informative paper you sent along it. I read the paper thoroughly and wondered how Dr van den Ban could be able to integrate different perspectives into a small paper like this. It is a very good analysis of existing extension system at a 'macro level'. However, the problem lies in the 'micro-perspective'.
It is a known fact that we are being blamed for 'stagnation of technologies' at the research establishments. Though such accusations are 'harsh' from our point of view, there is some 'truth' behind them. Over the years, we excelled as 'extension workers', by implementing new perspectives like 'participatory', 'single window', 'communication technology', entrepreneurship etc, in our work. But we failed to understand the 'science' behind each perspective which halted the growth of extension science. At large, we tend to be obsessed with 'macro-level' 'innovative thoughts' and 'practical philosophies'. We strongly believed that the agricultural systems are so complex, so the success of any technology intervention is affected by several macro-factors like globalization, etc. We relied on several participatory strategies to understand these complex systems, however, results of them can only be confined to the area where they were implemented. We never believed that such complex systems could be 'segmented' to identify 'homogenous' groups, so that technology interventions can be 'tailored' to achieve tangible impacts. Such approach not only helps us to achieve the 'desirable behavioral change', but also improves 'generalizability' of our work. The 'generalizability' is the major factor which contributes to advancement of knowledge and growth of the discipline.
On the other hand, the 'marketing scientists' who also work to achieve desirable impacts, have shown how the innovative quantitative research tools could be implemented at the rural areas to achieve tangible outputs. They proved that the so called 'heterogeneous complex' rural social systems can be 'segmented' into homogenous groups and technologies can be 'tailored' to their needs and conditions to achieve maximum impact. They developed a strong outcome oriented research discipline. This is where our extension discipline has failed.
At large, our programmes lack 'strong strategy' which is logically derived from empirical data about the population we intend to serve. This is evident from the fact that most of the adoption studies published in peer reviewed international journals are by the agricultural/development economists or social/ cognitive psychologists. The economists with their 'choice models' and the psychologists with their 'socio-cognitive technology acceptance models' proved that 'behavioral change' can be achieved by applying the scientific approach. They beautifully integrated quantitative approaches with their qualitative counter-parts to develop a strong research discipline of their own. I strongly recommend the extension professionals to read books on Strategic Marketing to understand the science of achieving behavioral changes (agri or health technology adoption/ capacity building/ empowerment/ economic development/ etc) by implementing a structured approach.
Regarding Dr. Ban's paper, the issues he highlighted like facilitating active learning processes, information and knowledge brokering, developing local organizations etc are application-oriented concepts which are more relevant to the present context. However, incorporating them directly into the curriculum will lead to confusion. I strongly believe that the extension curriculum must stick to the basics. More focus on the recent developments in the sociology, psychology (esp theories of social and cognitive psychology), educational technology (esp instructional design), psychometrics (with Item response theory, multivariate models and structural equation models etc.), econometrics (especially choice theories), agricultural finance & marketing (esp market identification, strategy development, segmentation etc.) and computer applications (esp multimedia softwares, testing - alpha, beta etc.) along with the areas suggested by Dr. BAN will help the extension professionals to develop a strong research discipline.
In simple words, if we focus on applying scientific approach at a 'micro-level' to achieve 'desirable' objectives, we will be able to understand the 'macro' perspectives and will also be able to quantify their impacts on extension clientele. Such objective approach will help us to generalize our findings on a larger scale, which helps in advancement of the extension research discipline. Besides contributing to theory development, it will also provide strong and empirically validated models for the extension workers who work at the field level.
These are my opinions about the state of extension discipline and my thoughts on improving the 'research state' of our profession. I never intend to downplay achievements of our stalwarts and dedicated scientists who contributed to the growth of this discipline. Please feel free to share your views which will help us to collectively contribute to the growth of extension discipline in the future.
Thank you once again for sending me a thought-provoking paper and request you to share any other resources of the same kind.

Sincerely

PS Sivakumar

Scientist, ICAR