An Investigation of the Agriculture Graduate Students’ Attitudes Regarding Agricultural Career as an Employment in the Future(Case Study: Tarbiat Modarres University)

The purpose of this descriptive-correlation study was to investigate and analyze the agriculture graduate students’ attitudes regarding agricultural career as regards employment in the future. The target population consisted of 356 agriculture students at Tarbiat Modarres University (TMU). By a simple random sampling procedure, 143 students out of the population were chosen as the sample for completing the questionnaires (n=143). This research was administrated through a valid and reliable questionnaire. Content validity of the study was ascertapined by a panel of experts in the field of agricultural extension and education. A pilot study was conducted on a similar population and reliability coefficients (A Cronbach’s Alpha) were estimated between 0.87 and 0.93 for the students’ perceptions. The research findings indicated that, in general, 19.7% students’ perceptions regarding their future employment were at “low” level, 48.6% at “average”, 27.5% at “high”, and 4.2% at “very high” levels. Pearson correlation coefficients showed statistically significant and positive relationship between the independent variables of agricultural work experiences, economic, cultural, social & educational perceptions and the dependent variable of students, behavioral perception toward their future employment. The results of the stepwise discriminate analysis by means of Wilks’ lambda procedure revealed that the most important distinguishing variables include agricultural activity experiences, and cultural, educational and social perceptions. In general, these variables could correctly classify behavioral perception of some 71.9% of all respondents as based on the obtained discriminate functions. Furthermore, it can be predicted through the obtained equations of this analysis which category of behavioral perception one particular individual in mind belongs to.