Factors Affecting the Agricultural and Natural Resources Faculty Members’ Participation in Jihad–Agriculture Organization’s Educational Programs for the Staff

One of the weaknesses of the Staff Educational Programs (SEP) of Jihad –Agriculture Organization (JAO) is the less use of qualified and expert teachers. The purpose of this research was to investigate the factors affecting the participation of agricultural and natural resources faculty members in the SEP. This research used a quantitative paradigm through a survey and conducted in 2021. A sample of 82 out of 110 agricultural and natural resources faculty members of Urmia University was randomly selected. The research tool was a questionnaire that designed based on theory of planned behavior. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by 5 faculty members at Urmia University and its convergent validity was confirmed using AVE (0.52-0.73). The reliability of the questionnaire was calculated by the ordinal theta (0.71-0.90) and CR (0.81-0.95). The results showed that faculty members have a positive attitude towards SEP, but less than 10% of the faculty members have participated in pre or in-service SEP. Intention of them to educate the JAO staff is lower than the average. Based on the ordinal logistic regression analysis, faculty members' intention to participate in the SEP is influenced by the variables self-control, trust in the JAO, organizational community norms, and the experience of participating in SEP. Therefore, in order to strengthen the participation of the faculty members in the SEP, it is necessary to create a cooperation agreement between the universities and the JAO. It is also recommended that these programs should be strengthened in terms of payments for faculty member and be considered as the faculty member’s job promotion indicators.