The Role of Educational and Social Factors on Rapeseed Consulting Engineers’ Effectiveness in East of Golestan Province

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors affecting the rapeseed consulting engineers’ effectiveness in East of Golestan province from the rapeseed farmers’ viewpoints. The study was a causal-relationship research. The statistical population consisted of farmers who planted the rapeseed in their land summing up to 950 people in 2021. The proportional stratified random sampling using the Cochran formula was adopted and 210 were selected as the sample. A quantitative paradigm was used and the content validity of the researcher-made questionnaire was confirmed by agricultural extension and education experts. Its reliability using Cornbrash’s alpha formula, ordinal alpha and Theta ordinal coefficient were α= 0/93, α = 0.91 and θ= 0/90, respectively. In order to analyze the data for both descriptive and inferential statistics, the SPSSWin21 and Smart PLS software were used. The results are presented using causal modeling methods and showed that all the subjects agreed and ranked the engineers’ technical advice and supervision at average and less. Also, based on the structural equation modeling, the greatest impact on the effectiveness of the consulting engineers was attributed to farmers ‘social impact variable with the path coefficient of 0/459 and the social participation with 0/195, educational factors with 0/185 ranked the next. It is worth noting that 72/2 percent of consulting engineers’ effectiveness in Eastern part of Golestan province is explained by the given variables.