Impact of informative videos on gain in knowledge of the farmers

Paddy straw management is a key barrier to paddy farming in northwestern India. Agricultural advisory services generally rely on interpersonal knowledge transfers. However, this method is not consistently effective and faces challenges in scalability, especially in widely scattered smallholder farming systems. Although there are number of Information and communication technologies available but the current study aims to evaluate video as the most effective medium to convey information in an attractive way and also effectively. Accordingly, a study was conducted during the year of 2020 in Ludhiana, Ferozepur and Sangrur district of Punjab to assess the impact of informative videos on gain in knowledge of respondents related to recommended paddy straw management technologies. A multi-stage sampling procedure was followed, a quasi-experimental pre and post tests along with control group was applied. The experimental group was exposed to the informative videos on paddy straw management technologies whereas no treatment was given to the control group. Three stages contact was made i.e., before treatment, at the time of treatment (video exposure) and after treatment to know the gain in knowledge. The findings of the study showed that a positive and significant difference between before and after exposure to the informative videos (t = 32.31, p < 0.05) whereas the control group was found to be non-significant (t = 1.62, p < 0.05). Whereas, after exposure to informative videos a significant difference was observed in mean knowledge score between of experimental and control group. Impact of informative videos on knowledge score was also calculated as effect of treatment which was found to be 7.00.