Program planning and adult education: Extension professionals' attitudes and practices at Ohio State University Extension

The purpose of this study was to describe and explain the nature and strength of relationships among variables through a descriptive-correlation design. Edgar J. Boone's Conceptual Program Model (Boone, 1985) was used for this study. OSU Extension professionals ranked processes used for program development in order of importance and regular use to determine the common processes and attitudes Extension professionals have towards programming. Zinn's Philosophy of Adult Education Inventory (Zinn, 1994) was used to identify the respondents philosophical orientation. Male respondents preferred progressive, radical and liberal philosophical orientations. Progressive by Agriculture Natural Resource, Behaviorist by Family and Consumer Sciences, Humanistics by 4-H, an Radical preferred by Community Developers to determine the proportion of variance in the implementation of program development processes multiple regression analysis was used. Fifty eight percent of the variance in the implementation of program development processes was accounted by the linear combination of perceived importance, knowledge levels on needs assessment and evaluation techniques and professional teaching experience other than Extension. Attitude was also another predictor of the implementation of program development processes.