Extension Service To Assess Usage Among County

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

The Cooperative Extension Service has had a profound impact on agriculture in the United States and abroad throughout the years. As stated in The Texas State Historical Association handbook, Cooperative Extension work became a national farm program under the Smith-Lever Act of 1914, (2010).

The creator of the Texas Agricultural Extension Service was Seaman Ashael Knapp. He was a United States Department of Agriculture Agent who created programs for farming needs. In 1903, Knapp developed demonstration farms in Terrell and Greenville, Texas respectively, to show farmers new farming techniques and production methods. He worked with local farmers and businessmen to offer demonstrations (Boyer, 2001).

Congress was so impressed with his success that they passed the Smith-Lever Act. According to The Texas State Historical Association, other early innovators of the agency were the first Extension Agents, the forerunners of today’s Agriculture and Natural Resources, 4-H and Youth Development and Family and Consumer Sciences Agents William C. Stallings, Tom M. Marks, and Edna W. Trigg (2010).

A multitude of innovations emerged from the newly founded Texas Agricultural Extension Service, now known as the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service: corn clubs, tomato clubs and home demonstration clubs to name a few. As seen in Agricultural Education and Extension: Oxford Companion to United States History, http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O119-AgriculturalEductnndxtnsn.html: "during the great depression, Texas county extension agents (CEAs) taught adults and youth to produce food and fiber as efficiently as possible through the use of new technology. Agents conducted demonstrations to encourage rural Texans to embrace these means" 2010). Thus; CEAs are change agents; innovators in their own right and continue to find ways to reach clientele with research-based educational programming and technological advancements in their fields of study.

"The Texas A&M AgriLife Information Technology department provides strategic IT leadership, management oversight and enterprise IT services for customers within the Texas A&M AgriLife System," (http://agrilife.org/it, 2012). In reference to information located at the AgriLife Information Technology (AIT) website, AIT provides information technology services to help Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, Texas A&M AgriLife Research Service and the Texas A&M campus to increase the reach and richness of educational programs as well as improve overall productivity and effectiveness. The AIT department partners with TAEX staff to identify, implement and sustain appropriate technologies in support of Extension’s mission and goals, and train staff in the effective use of these technologies, 2012.

The AIT department is comprised of thirty professionals and is divided into five units. The regional information technology specialist (RITS) unit has responsibility for extension offices in 250 counties. A major part of their job responsibility is spent supporting and consulting agents in workstation assistance. The RITS unit performs a smaller role in providing technology training to agents and support staff.

Technology is changing the way extension agents collaborate with each other and their audiences. An evaluation was conducted to determine what technology tools were being used in Extension. According to Davis, Cochran, and Thomas, many Extension systems have begun to feel the effects of reductions in budget, personnel, and other resources (2009). With these challenges to do more with less, Extension has created e-learning tools to reach more people. New electronic technology creates opportunities and challenges for Extension educators.

Microsoft Lyncâ„¢ is a single, unified communications (UC) platform that operates well with Microsoft Office, including Outlook and Microsoftâ„¢ Exchange. According to The Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Lyncâ„¢ Server 2010, delivering unified communications and collaboration capabilities in a software-based approach enables IT managers to rapidly upgrade existing Microsoft Office Communications Serverâ„¢ (OCS) environments, or replace non-Microsoft infrastructure, and offer communications and collaboration capabilities to their users within familiar Microsoftâ„¢ environments like Office, SharePoint, and Exchange (North, 2010). The concept behind UC is to give users a single interface to all modes of communication: voice, video, messaging, and presence.

The Microsoft Corporationâ„¢ has simplified its UC while enhancing features and functions. Lyncâ„¢ provides a user interface based on identity and presence that brings together voice, instant messaging (IM), audio, video, and web conferencing (North, 2010). Even with Lyncâ„¢ in place, some professionals continue to rely on email and the telephone. Moreover, the AgriLife Information Technology (AIT) department must continue to be examples to users and encourage them to use Lync with every opportunity possible.

Literature Review

Conceptual Framework

The diffusion of innovations theories, developed over a half century ago, have provided a popular framework to explain how new ideas and technologies are spread and adopted in a community (Rogers, 2003). This study provides a theoretical framework for using diffusion of innovation concepts and theories to obtain a deep understanding of factors that influence adoption practices. These concepts together provide insight into human and social nature, including how new information is accepted (or not accepted) by potential users (Hubbard & Sandmann, 2007). Obtaining detailed information is critical to Extension professionals that want to affect change. As explained by Rogers, the diffusion of innovations theories have remained instrumental to Extension professionals, scholars, and students alike and continues to be useful in countless other fields, including medicine, telecommunications, information technology, and social marketing (2003).

Consequences of Innovations

According to Rogers, consequences are the changes that occur to an individual or to a social system as a result of the adoption or rejection of an innovation. Three classifications of consequences are:

Desirable versus undesirable consequences, depending on whether the effects of an innovation in a social system are functional or dysfunctional.

Direct versus indirect consequences, depending on whether the changes to an individual or to a social system occur in immediate response to an innovation or as a second-order result of the direct consequences of an innovation.

Anticipated versus unanticipated consequences, depending on whether or not the changes are recognized and intended by the members of a social system.

Change agents usually introduce innovations into a client system that they expect will have consequences that will be desirable, direct, and anticipated (Rogers, 2003).

Regional information technology specialists (RITS) are change agents in accordance with guidelines set by administration of the TAEX and the AIT department. They deployed Microsoft Lyncâ„¢ and trained agents how to use it after installation via the technology tool. Agents learned immediately how to instant message, start video, make phone calls and determine presence status of others. After deployment, RITS conducted voluntary training via Centraâ„¢ to review what agents had learned and to teach them about the capabilities of the product. Extension administration had provided Microsoft LifeCamâ„¢ webcams for all agents and required them to have Lyncâ„¢ installed on their computers. It was recommended that Lyncâ„¢ be connected at all times, when possible. Consequences of this innovation included some agents being uncomfortable with video usage and hard for them to remember or even want to initiate usage. And there were technical issues because of the vast array of equipment, bandwidth, and access to internet service providers throughout the county offices within the enormous state of Texas.

Technology Acceptance Model

The user acceptance in technology has been important for twenty years now. Although many models have been proposed to explain and predict the use of a system, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been the only one which has captured the most attention of the information systems community (Chuttur, 2009). This theory can be used with the Lync™ study to determine user practice and ease of use. In 1985, Fred Davis proposed TAM in his doctoral thesis at the MIT Sloan School of Management (Davis, 1985). He proposed that system use is a response that can be explained or predicted by user motivation, which, in turn, is directly influenced by an external stimulus consisting of the actual system’s features and capabilities (p. 1). In Davis’s proposal he suggested users’ motivation can be explained by three factors: perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and attitude toward using the system (p. 2).

Problem

The budget of the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service is primarily comprised of salaries for employees. It has lost a number of faculty members in 2011, as it did in 1988, 1991, and 2002. Extension systems have felt the effects of reductions in budgets, personnel, and other resources (Davis, Cochran & Thomas, 2009). TAEX continues to do more with fewer resources. This is why it is important for faculty to embrace online opportunities.

Purpose of Study

The purpose of the study is to determine technology practices of Extension professionals by deducing their knowledge of the Microsoft Lyncâ„¢ technology, obtaining information about their technology usage, and determining what they want to accomplish while using the technology.

Research Questions

How does Microsoft Lyncâ„¢ enable county Extension agents to collaborate and communicate?

How are county Extension agents using Lyncâ„¢ to improve their job performance?

What Lyncâ„¢ features do county Extension agents utilize?

How do county Extension agents plan to improve their Lyncâ„¢ usage?

Research Design

As noted in the Qualitative Research Methods: A Data Collector’s Field Guide,

quantitative research methods once dominated the fields of traditional academic social sciences, particularly in public health and international development research. However, researchers have now begun drawing from a more diverse repertoire of methodologies as they tackle international public health problems. Qualitative methods have become important tools within this broader approach to applied research, in a large part due to their valuable insights into local perspectives of study of populations (2005).

Qualitative designs are valuable to gain insight into one’s feelings, thought processes, and emotions concerning a phenomenon that are difficult to obtain using other methods (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). When designing a naturalistic study, the researcher should plan for uncertainty without indicating what will be done. It is important to plan in advance to develop conditions of entry and to plan the purposive sample selection, data collection, and data analysis. The researcher will also be planning for quality of the study, dissemination of the results, and reviewing design.

The naturalistic paradigm has a natural setting, a human instrument, implied knowledge, qualitative methods, purposive sampling, inductive data analysis, grounded theory, emergent design, negotiated outcomes, and case study reporting. The qualitative research paradigm will be used for this study. Individual respondent interviews will be utilized to address research questions through phenomenology. Naturalistic observation, as defined by Fraenkel and Wallen, is observation in which the observer controls or manipulates nothing and tries not to affect the observed situation in any way (2009). Prior research regarding a collaboration tool such as Microsoft Lyncâ„¢ is limited. The researcher acknowledges some studies have been conducted in the business arena, but academic studies have been difficult to locate. This qualitative study offers information that can be used in future research concerning usage of technological collaboration tools within educational organizations. The three journal article format will be used and each section will relate to the research questions: 1) How does Microsoft Lyncâ„¢ enable county Extension agents to collaborate and communicate? 2) How are county Extension agents using Lyncâ„¢ to improve their job performance? 3) What Lyncâ„¢ features do county Extension agents utilize and how do county Extension agents plan to improve their Lyncâ„¢ usage?

Sample

A purposive sample will be selected through the use of the snowball sample. Regional information technology specialists and AIT administrators will be involved in the sampling. Six regional information technology specialists will be asked to identify three types of users for the study. Specialists will select one advanced user, one intermediate user, and one basic user per region. This sample will consist of eighteen county extension agents (n=18). The scope of the study will focus on three types of computer users identified as: advanced, intermediate and basic users. In identifying advanced users, RITs will target agents …with a sense of curiosity, a desire to implement new skills and ideas, and a high level of patience and cooperation (Davis, Cochran, & Thomas, 2009).

To assist RITs in determining user skills, they will follow Microsoftâ„¢ guidelines for levels of competency. Microsoftâ„¢ has created skill levels for each of its software products: Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint.

Moreover, the Maryland Technology Literacy Standards for Students companion document is intended to provide guidance as to what computer skills users possess, independently at various levels (basic, intermediate and proficient) with specific types of software applications to enable then to access, manage, integrate, evaluate, create and communicate (2007):

• Basic – Foundational computer literacy skills

• Intermediate – Computer literacy and competency beyond the foundational

level

• Proficient – Computer literacy and competency beyond the intermediate level

applied in educational and work settings

Data Collection

Individual participant interviews will be conducted via the Microsoft Lyncâ„¢ collaboration software. Several features of Lyncâ„¢ will be utilized while conducting interviews: phone call and video features, recording feature to obtain audio files of interviews, and sharing feature to present visible questions to the audience. Each session will last approximately thirty to forty-five minutes. All respondents will be coded with a number (1-18) and numbered in the order of their interview. These sessions will be saved, recorded, printed and field notes will be taken. Detailed responses will be transcribed.

According to Merriam, triangulation of data is important to ensure trustworthiness. Multiple data points and perspectives should be collected. While preparing for data collection, open-ended data gathering guides should be designed. This includes interview protocol, a field note template, and document and artifact content analysis constructs based on the literature review should be secured. Expansion research can be used to examine credibility and transferability, investigate findings using different methodologies, and examine changes over time (2009).

Interview questions will be asked:

What are the advantages of using Lyncâ„¢? Tell me what you like about Lync.

What are the disadvantages of using Lyncâ„¢? Tell what you do not like about Lync.

What features do you currently use? IM? Phone? Video/Web Cam? Meeting? Sharing?

How do you plan to improve Lyncâ„¢ usage?

What problems have you encountered with Lyncâ„¢?

Tell what else you would like to share about your Lyncâ„¢ experiences?

Ethical Consideration

As stated by Fraenkel & Wallen, the term ethics refers to questions of right and

wrong. When researchers think about ethics, they must ask themselves if it is "right" to conduct a particular study or carry out certain procedures (2009). To ensure member checking, a confidentiality statement will be included with the interview questions: Your information will be collected, compiled and returned to you in an email to confirm the correct data. Data will be confidentially shared with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension technology department and extension administration.

Trustworthiness

Guba proposes four criteria to control error that are appropriate for qualitative research: "credibility in place of internal validity, transferability in place of external validity, dependability in place of reliability, and confirmability in place of objectivity" (1981). When researchers construct and communicate reality, they build trustworthiness, use selection of methods, collect and analyze data, and report findings. In order to build trustworthiness, the researcher must represent accurate views of the participants in their conclusions; this is known as credibility.

Credibility

In this study, credibility with triangulation, peer debriefing and member checks will be utilized. Credibility relates to truthfulness of results and can be addressed by offering accurate representation to the participants. In other words, credibility is the equivalent of internal validity in quantitative research.

Strategies associated with credibility include triangulation (the use of multiple investigators, multiple sources of data, or multiple methods for confirmation), member checking, peer/colleague examination, researcher subjectivity statements, and submersion in research, or collecting data over a long period of time for sufficient understanding (Merriam, 1995).

Transferability

Transferability relates to the results and how they can be applied to other situations. As indicated by Merriam, the goal of qualitative research is "to understand the particular in-depth, rather than finding out what is generally true of many" (1995). Rich, thick descriptions of the context and situations are detailed which allows readers to easily transfer the findings to comparable situations (Merriam, 1995).

Dependability

Dependability, or trustworthiness, refers to the consistency of the findings in other studies (replication). An audit trail will be kept to ensure trustworthiness.

Confirmability

Confirmability is the audit trail’s purpose. Its importance is that of bias-free research. Researchers must ensure that the data collected and the conclusions drawn would be confirmed by others in the same situation. Strategies include audit trails, triangulation of methods, and peer review (Ary, Jacobs, Razaveigh, & Sorenson, 2006).

Researcher Bias

All qualitative methodologies take a subjective approach that aims to eliminate researcher bias as focus is placed on understanding and interpreting meaning from the participant’s point of view (Crotty, 1998). The key research instrument is an adaptable researcher that is able to capture data in different environments and serve as a critical part of

the process when studying human experiences and situations (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Subjectivity statement: I am a regional information technology specialist employed by AIT. Major responsibility areas are spent supporting and consulting agents in computer workstation/technical assistance, maintaining administrative tasks, and initiating and completing technical projects. I play a smaller role in providing technology training to agents and support staff (AgriLife Information Technology Department, Texas A&M AgriLife System. 2012. Retrieved from http://agrilife.org/it).

Data Analysis

According to Bogdan & Biklen, data analysis conducted in qualitative research includes

models, themes, and concepts. Data analysis is ongoing, inductive and uses the constant comparative method (1992). The researcher will begin a journal, conduct research to decide on interviewing techniques, and collect documents and artifacts. The researcher will review items to be used for document analysis. Interviews will be utilized for the project and field notes,

audio recording, and transcripts will be utilized. A data gathering guide will be created and trustworthiness procedures will be reviewed. Colored highlighters will be used to indicate emerging themes. Peer debriefing will be utilized to check category set up. Patterns will be compiled and categorized based upon input. In this study, credibility with triangulation, peer debriefing and member checks will also be utilized. Content analysis will provide different sources to triangulate data.

Communicating Results

In order to communicate results, the researcher will define the audience to whom the findings will be shared. This process is called audience conjuring according to Merriam. The audience for Lyncâ„¢ results will be extension administration, AIT administration, and gatekeepers. An executive summary will be shared with the audience. A full description of the setting and the research study written in a brief summary with simple language (jargon-free), and the benefits will be highlighted (Merriam, 2009). The outline of the report and the estimated number of pages will be organized and allocated per section. The study will be shared in a Microsoft PowerPointâ„¢ presentation.

One of the most difficult dilemmas to resolve in writing up qualitative research is deciding how much concrete description to include as opposed to analysis and interpretation and how to integrate on with the other so that the narrative remains interesting and informative (Merriam, 2009). A record of study will be prepared and articles will be submitted for publication to a professional journal.

Significance of Study

The budget of TAEX is primarily comprised of salaries for employees. Extension systems have felt the effects of reductions in budgets, personnel, and other resources (Davis, Cochran & Thomas, 2009). At the same time, we are also seeing large increases in online and e-learning in organizations with shifting demographics contributing as a more tech-savvy generation enters the workforce (Kranz, 2008). As supported by Weatherly, organizational pressures to do more with less and general increases in online and e-learning, anecdotal evidence suggests that …organizations employees and clientele are looking to express interest in receiving more information at their convenience in synchronous and asynchronous electronic format (2005).

Extension is pursuing a variety of distance educational opportunities due to budget constraints. According to Case and Hino (2010), educators should think of digital media as "learning objectives" that can be used on web pages and/or incorporated into other kinds of technology like LEGO™ blocks. Learning objectives can be built into different ways to create different learning experiences, (p. 2). Since increased access and use of technology is changing the way extension professionals connect to each other, Microsoft Lync™ will enhance program planning and internal organization within the agency, as well as enhance agents’ training and educational opportunities.

Defining of Terms (Nomenclature)

Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service (TAEX, Extension, Cooperative Extension Service)

The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service is a unique education agency with a statewide network of professional educators, trained volunteers, and county offices. It reaches into every Texas county to address local priority needs.

AgriLife information technology (AIT)

The AgriLife information technology department provides strategic IT leadership, management and IT services for extension employees.

regional information technology specialists (RITS, specialists, or gatekeepers)

AgriLife regional information technology specialists support county

extension professionals with their technological needs.

county extension agents (CEAs, agents, or professionals)

According to Extension, a county extension agent is a professional who is employed by county, state, and federal agencies to teach agriculture, family and consumer sciences, and youth development to audiences at the grass roots level to help them with research-based information provided by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. Also known as extension agent, agricultural agent, family and consumer sciences agent, or 4-H agent.

Microsoft Lyncâ„¢ (Lync, collaboration tool)

Microsoft Lyncâ„¢ is a single, unified communications (UC) platform that operates well with Microsoft Officeâ„¢, including Outlookâ„¢ and Microsoft Exchangeâ„¢ (Microsoftâ„¢, 2012). Lyncâ„¢ provides a user interface based on

identity and presence that brings together voice, instant messaging (IM), audio, video, and web conferencing.

unified communications (UC)

The concept behind unified communications is to give users a single interface to all modes of communication: voice, video, messaging, and presence.

Roger’s consequences of innovations from Diffusion of Innovation, 2003.

Consequences of innovations can be both positive and negative outcomes when an individual or organization chooses to adopt a particular innovation. Rogers states that this is an area that needs further research because of the biased positive attitude that is associated with the adoption of an innovation (Rogers, 2005, p. 470). In the Diffusion of Innovation, Rogers lists three categories for consequences:

desirable versus undesirable

direct versus indirect

anticipated versus unanticipated

Technology acceptance model (TAM)

The technology acceptance model is an information systems theory that models how users come to accept and use a technology. It was created by Fred Davis. The model suggests that when users are presented with a new technology, a number of factors influence their decision about how and when they will use it, notably:

Perceived usefulness (PU) - This was defined by Fred Davis as "the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance".

Perceived ease-of-use (PEOU) - Davis defined this as "the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free from effort" (Davis 1989).