Scale development for assessing farmers perception regarding climatesmart interventions under technology demonstration component of NICRA project

Farmers in rain-fed areas are highly vulnerable to the impact of climate change due to their
dependence on agriculture, therefore adoption of climate-smart interventions is important in these
areas. The technology demonstration component (TDC) of the National Innovations in Climate
Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) project deals with demonstrating proven interventions for adaptation
of crop and livestock production systems to climate variability. It is therefore important to measure
the perception of farmers towards climate-smart interventions as it may affect the implementation
of the climate-smart interventions of technology demonstration component of the NICRA project.
The present study made an attempt to develop the scale to measure the farmers perception on
climate-smart agricultural interventions. The scale construction consisted of construct validity,
content validity and internal consistency reliability. To maximize the theoretical meaningfulness and
practical utility of the scale, the aspects of construct validity was considered at all stages of the scale
construction process. Relevancy weightage (RW) and mean relevancy score (MRS) was measured
to assess the relevancy of items on the scale. Factor analysis was done for psychometric evaluation.
Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) grouped the items into three key factors. In Confirmatory Factor
Analysis (CFA), factor structure of the model was used to confirm to relationship between items
and factors. Further, the Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) and Standardized
Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) were used to assess the model fit. Cronbach alpha was used to
assess the reliability of the scale. A total of 26 items were retained. The scale developed was found
to be reliable and valid.