Factors Affecting Professional Competencies of Educators in Agricultural Engineering Consulting Firms in Golestan, Iran

Consulting educators must have professional skills and competencies required to do their job properly. The purpose of this research was to investigate factors affecting professional competencies of agricultural engineering consultants in the East Golestan Province. Methodologically, this research is a causal-relation and applied study. The statistical population consisted of 180 agricultural consultants. According to the Cochran formula, a sample size of 110 was selected using stratified random sampling method. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire, with content validity approved by agricultural extension experts at Sari Islamic Azad University and reliability estimated to be 0.94, using ordinal theta coefficient. Data processing was conducted using SPSSWin16. The analysed results showed that, 33.6% of respondents ranked their professional competencies at intermediate level, while 16.4% considered it at the weak level. The results also indicated that variables management, educational, communication and environmental factors had a significant positive correlation with professional competencies. Based on the ordinal regression findings, two factors namely management and education influenced the probability of estimating the level of professional competence of the consulting educators.