ASRB Extension · Unit 1 of 10

Unit 1: Fundamentals of Extension Education & Communication

The foundation unit. Where extension came from, what it is for, how India's extension system was built, and how communication actually works between a scientist, an extension worker and a farmer.

What this unit covers

Unit 1 is the one everything else leans on. The diffusion and adoption material here reappears inside Unit 9 when innovation systems are discussed, the communication models reappear in Unit 2 when teaching methods are chosen, and the history of Indian extension is assumed knowledge in Unit 7. Aspirants who leave this unit until late end up learning parts of it three times. It is also the unit with the largest share of previous year questions, and the questions tend to be definitional, which makes them cheap marks if the names and definitions are learned as pairs.

The unit is broken into 10 syllabus areas, listed below. ASRB has set 29 descriptive questions from it that are on record, and there are 205 practice questions for it on this site.

Syllabus areas in this unit

  • Meaning, definitions, philosophy, objectives and principles of Extension Education
  • History of extension in India: pre-independence experiments, Community Development, IRDP
  • The Training and Visit system, NATP, NAIP and NMAET with its sub-missions
  • Research-Extension-Farmer linkage models and technology dissemination
  • Extension in livestock, dairy and fisheries
  • Elements and models of communication; Shannon and Weaver, Berlo, Westley and MacLean, Schramm
  • Homophily and heterophily; credibility and fidelity in communication
  • Diffusion of innovations, the adoption process and adopter categories
  • Human behaviour in extension: attitude, perception, motivation and personality
  • Rural leadership and the changing role of the change agent

Key concepts

Extension Education. An applied social science that carries useful, research-based information to rural people and helps them apply it to their own situation. It is education outside the classroom, voluntary, and built on the learner's felt needs.

Diffusion of innovations. Everett Rogers' framework describing how a new idea spreads through a social system over time, through the channels people already use.

Adopter categories. Rogers' five groups, by relative earliness of adoption: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards.

Homophily and heterophily. The degree to which two people who communicate are alike, or unlike, in beliefs, education and social status. Extension is often heterophilous, which is exactly what makes it difficult.

Previous year questions from Unit 1

Descriptive questions ASRB has actually set from this unit, with the year in brackets.

  • Importance of basic rural institutions (2014)
  • Agricultural Knowledge Information System (AKIS) (2014)
  • Explain AKIS in Indian context? (2023)
  • Composition of governing body in ATMA? (2014)
  • Write five salient features of ATMA and ATIC (2016)
  • Write short notes about ATMA (2021)
  • Write short notes on ATIC and its role (2021)
  • Explain Farmer FIRST programme? (2023)

29 previous year questions from this unit in total. The full list is on the PYQ page.

Practice for this unit

  • 205 descriptive practice questions across 5, 10 and 15 marks, in the Mains section.
  • Objective practice for this unit in the MCQ section, with ASRB marking and full analysis.
  • Full-length tests that draw on this unit alongside the other nine, in the mock tests.

The other units

Continue

Unit 2: Extension Methods & Agricultural Journalism The next unit All unit notes Study material for every unit ASRB NET Extension hub Pattern, strategy and resources