An evaluation on the PDS project

Summary

With the assistance of the staff of the Rural Extension Centre (REC) a simple evaluation process was developed. This process was aimed at determining changes in the knowledge, attitude, skills and aspirations (KASA) of producers in addition to practise changes resulting from individual PDS. The evaluation process was developed using the Bennett Hierarchy principles.

The focus PDS for the evaluation was selected as producers were known to have been involved in the establishment and management of the site and the technology demonstrated was simple and effective. Seven of eight producers known to have been involved in the demonstration adopted and continued to use the technology demonstrated. Only one of four producers who had not attended any activities at the site had adopted the technology. The study also confirmed that for producers in this area, the preferred information source was other producers followed closely by DPI newsletters, demonstration sites and DPI staff.