Participants' attitudes toward the Radio Correspondents Project in the rural upper northern part of Thailand
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Date
1986
Authors
Settapan Mandranandra
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Abstract
The respondents of this study were 127 participants in the Radio Correspondence Project (RCP) who live in the three provinces of the rural upper northern part of Thailand, namely: Chiengmai, Chiengrai and Lampang. These participants were enrolled in the Functional Continuing Adult Education (Level 4) at the time of the study, 1985-1986. The general objective of the study was to determine the respondents' socio-demographic and socio-economic characteristic as well as the communication factors of the participants of RCP, and their attitudes towards the RCP. Specifically, it sought to find out the relationship of the independent variables to attitudes.
The respondents had a mean age of 21 years; were predominantly single, and that the male and female had almost an equal number. They were generally blue-collar workers, majority of whom were farmers. The mean number of years that lapsed since they left school was 6 years.
Their mean family annual income was 9,459.29 Bahts which is low under Thai standards. Majority of them declared that their incomes were lower before participating in the Radio Correspondence Project.
The mean length of involvement to RCP is 2.50 years. Generally, only one member of the family is involved who happened to be the respondent himself.
Four communication factors were considered in this study: change agents contacts, attendance to group meetings, listening to radio broadcasts, and availing of printed media. Majority of the respondents indicated they were often involved in the aforementioned factors.
The mean attitude score of the respondents towards some aspects of the RCP was 3.51 classified as "agreed" on the aspects of the RCP such as access to information, general knowledge building, skills and value development, educational opportunities and improvement of occupational practice. Of these, the items on skills and value development were not agreeable to them.
Of the socio-demographic characteristics considered, those significantly associated with attitudes were age, occupation, and number of years they were out of school. Older respondents who were out of school for long had a higher attitude level towards the RCP. Respondents with different occupations also had varying attitude levels.