Barriers to Effective Use of Virtual Social Networks in Agricultural Extension and Education

The purpose of the study was to investigate the barriers of effective use of virtual social networks in agricultural extension and education activities of Agricultural Jihad Organization of Zanjan province. The instrument for collecting data of this descriptive-correlation study was a researcher-made questionnaire. The validity of the questionnaire was approved by a panel of academic experts. Pre-test and calculating Cronbach's alpha coefficients were used to measure the reliability (α = 0/87- 0/94). Agricultural experts in Agricultural Jihad Organization of Zanjan province in 2018 formed the population of the study (N=346) and samples were selected using stratified random sampling (n=105). Results of confirmatory factor analysis of barriers to effective use of virtual social networks in agricultural extension and education activities has been summarized in nine factors including: Low relevant and correct agricultural information with low security, administrative and social insecurity and lack of culture of the educational use of social networks, farmer's limited use of virtual social networks, negative organizational and managerial norms in using virtual social networks, financial and legal barriers in organization, inconsistent information and lack of local information, lack of professional and adequate knowledge of experts and outside computers. These factors explained 72.54% of the total variance. Due to considerable amount of useful time that experts and farmers allocated to virtual social networks, it is recommended that to plan for this optimal and useful application of this capacity agricultural extension and education activities.