Cooperative Extension in New York State has as its primary purpose to help people to improve their lives, families, and communities through interpretation of research and extension of new knowledge from the land grant university to deal with their concerns. Attainment of this purpose depends greatly on the effectiveness of elected program committees responsible for guiding informal educational programs and services in each county. / In 1978, a project was conducted, the purpose of which was to design a plan of action for helping county extension agents improve program committee effectiveness. A design method created by Roy J. Ingham (1972) was used to develop the plan of action. Project steps were performed in accordance with his "Method of Designing Action Systems" (MODAS). Implemented steps are: / (1) Description of the present state of the situation (S). In 1977, less than 30% of all New York counties had program committees rated as performing at or above a "good" level of effectiveness. / (2) Description of the desired state (S(,1)). The preferred situation was to have no less than 75% of the counties with program committees performing at or above a "good" level by June 1980. / (3) Formulation of a rationale for S(,1) to substantiate its value. / (4) Identification of a more encompassing class of phenomena which includes the observed situation (S). Through a literature search it was learned that a rating of performance could be classified as an instance of organizational effectiveness. / (5) Location of a relevant and reliable knowledge base. Rensis Likert's (1967) theory of organizational behavior was selected as the explanatory system most adequate to explain the means for achieving member acceptance of high goals, a concept identified as having strong potential for controlling organizational effectiveness. The identified means concepts are high leader goals, supportive leadership, group methods of leadership and leader work facilitation. / (6) Design of a specific plan of action (POA(,1)) by translating identified means concepts into concrete observable actions. Sixteen activities, attributes of which specifically matched the means concepts, were designed for the plan of action for increasing member acceptance of high goals. / (7) Identification and measurement of exogenous variables (external environmental factors) which, if in a certain state, might prevent the POA(,1) from attaining the desired state; then, modification of the plan of action (POA(,2)) to account for these variables. The three program leaders in a county selected for POA implementation and their state supervisors were interviewed and available records were examined in light of variables identified in social science literature. The organization climate was examined by a survey of committee members. / (8) Preparation of a plan for process and product evaluation. Interviews of committee members were planned to determine what, and how, components of the plan of action were implemented. Pre- and post-project member surveys were planned to measure the present and desired states of the means concepts in the selected county and a comparison county. / (9) Implementation of the POA(,2). One new and two experienced program leaders in the project county implemented POA(,2) with different program committees over a period of ten months. / (10-12) Evaluation of the process with necessary modifications and determination of the state of member acceptance of high goals in the program committees through product evaluation. Evidence obtained from survey responses, corroborated by reported member actions, supports the claim that attainment of (S(,1)) can be attributed to POA(,2). / Fellow extension administrators urge that POA(,1) be used in other counties of New York. Also, they suggest using MODAS to assist extension agents in designing plans of action for improving other aspects of Cooperative Extension. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-03, Section: A, page: 0898. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74105 |
| Contributors | JEWETT, DONALD LEO., The Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 222 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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