Impact of dairy farm management training workshop on the knowledge level of participants

The dairy industry is an important part of the economy in developing countries. There is a dire need for trained human resources for the development of this sector. Five days training workshop was organized for demonstration of dairy management practices at University of Sargodha, Pakistan. A sample of 36 participants was randomly selected across the country from the dairy industry. The pre and post-tests, each comprising of 20 multiple choice questions, were given to the participants at the start and at the end of training. The results revealed significant improvement in the knowledge level of the participants after training program since the mean difference = 5.03, t = 9.39, SE = 0.535 with p-value less than 0.1. Complete regression model was run with independent variables of age, experience and education on the variable of difference of the post-test to pre-test and model was statistically significant F (3, 32) = 2.75 p less than 0.1. Age was the only significant predictor in the model and showed negative effect on the difference of scores of the participants, and explained 20% of the total variance. Another regression model was run on the scores after training. The model was statistically significant F (3, 32) = 4.20 p less than 0.1. It revealed that educational level played a central role in the knowledge improvement and explained 28% of the total variance in the dependent variable. Correlation of the variables further confirmed the results and showed that only education was positively significantly correlated with the scores of the participants after completing training. Variables such as age and experience showed negative relationship with the scores of the participants. It was concluded that older participants with lower educational level could not perform well in short training programs and need separate extensive and long term training sessions.