Author : Jintana Amornsanguansin

Summary : The purpose of this study was to identify: 1) demographic characteristics of RFD forest officers village programs in Northeast Thailand; 2) some of the roles they play while performing their extension duties, functions, and responsibilities; 3) their attitudes toward the nature of their jobs and target cleintele; 4) problems encountered with regard to clientele, area of assignment, and program implementation; 5) the relationship between extension role performances and selected variables; and 6) the difference between their extension role performance as perceived by themselves and by the cleintele. Twenty-eight forest officers and 256 clients were surveyed through self-survey questionaire and interviews, respectively. Findings showed that the mean age of forest officer respondents was 31 years. The majority of them were married. All had educational background in forestry. Their average length of employment in the forest village program was three years, while their training experiences ranged from 0-1,158 hours. Slightly over-half had favorable attitudes toward their job in the program. However, the number of respondents with favorable attitude toward the clientele, was equal to that with unfavorable attitude. The majority had "more problems" with clientele while slightly over half had "less problems" with both clientele and program implementation. The Chi-square test indicated that only one variable (training experience regarding the program) was significantly related to extension role performances of forest officers. The sign test showed that there were no differences between extension role performances of forest officers, as perceived by themselves and as perceived by clinetele.