Agricultural Paradigmatic Preferences of Agricultural and Natural Resources Faculty Members in west of Iran

The purpose of this descriptive survey study was to measure agricultural paradigmatic preferences of agricultural faculty members in west of Iran. The statistical population consisted all 288 faculty members of agriculture at public universities (Razi, Bu-Ali Sina, Lorestan, Kordestan and Ilam) in west of Iran. According to the Krejcie & Morgan table, a sample size of 165 was selected using stratified random sampling method. Based on findings, the sustainability score mean for faculty members was 71.13. The range of sustainability score means for all the respondents was 40 to 109 and agricultural paradigm type of faculty members was moderate. There was a significant difference between sustainability score means male and female faculty members and of faculty members graduated from within the country universities and those universities abroad. There was a negative and significant relationship between sustainability score with age and job experiences. Analysis of variance showed that there was no significant difference between sustainability score means of faculty members with different agricultural disciplines and significant difference between sustainability score means of faculty members in the different faculties of agriculture. Based on ordinal regression analysis, six variables including gender, employment in agriculture, graduated from universities abroad, age, academic rank and job experiences were influencing on agricultural paradigm evaluation of faculty members.