Purpose, Procedures, and Duration of the Study

Title of Project: County Extension Directors’ Perceptions of Their Evolving Role in the Future: Implications for      Pennsylvania State Cooperative Extension

1.      Purpose of the Study:  The overall purpose of this study is to identify and describe the future roles of CEDs of the Pennsylvania State Cooperative Extension based upon the perceptions of the past and present extension practices. The focus is to determine the possible, probable, or preferred desirable future roles of the CEDs.

2.      Procedures to be followed:  You will be asked to answer four research questions in a Key Informant Interview (KI) workshop, evaluate the KI determined future roles in a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) meeting, and brainstorm on role ideas from emerging questions from the FGD to reach a consensus using the Delphi technique process. The KI interview workshop and the FGD meeting will be recorded using a digital recorder.

3.      Duration:  It will take about 90 minutes, each, to complete the Key Informant interview workshop and Focus Group Discussion meeting. It will take approximately 2-3 days to complete a Delphi study. Thus, the total amount of time you will spend in this study will be approximately 6 hours.

4.      Statement of Confidentiality: Your participation in this research is confidential. If you speak about the contents of the focus group outside the group, it is expected that you will not tell others what individual participants said. The data will be stored in a locked office and secured in a computer file that is password protected until December 31, 2011 at which time it will be destroyed. The only people to have access to the recordings will be Dr. Baggett and Ahmed Banya. In the event of a publication or presentation resulting from this research, no personally identifiable information will be shared and only group data will be presented.

5.      Right to Ask Questions: Please contact Ahmed Banya at 814-222-2000 or at akb194@psu.edu or contact Dr. Connie D. Baggett at 814-863-7415 or at bbc@psu.edu with questions or concerns about this study.