Programme Planning — Agriculture Extension & Communication Reviewer Questions

Sample Programme Planning questions with answers and explanations

Board-style items taken from the Agriculture Extension & Communication bank. Every answer is explained, which is the part that makes a review question worth doing twice.

1. An extension programme is designed in the provincial office and delivered unchanged to twelve municipalities. Which planning principle is violated?

   • A. Programmes must be approved by the provincial office
   • B. Programmes must be based on locally identified needs and situations correct
   • C. Programmes must be uniform to permit fair evaluation
   • D. Programmes must be delivered by provincial staff

   Why: Situation analysis is the first step of programme planning, and situations differ between municipalities. A uniform programme is administratively convenient and agronomically indefensible where soils, crops and institutions differ.

2. Which sequence correctly orders the extension programme planning process?

   • A. Set objectives, analyse the situation, evaluate, identify problems, implement
   • B. Implement activities, evaluate, set objectives, analyse the situation
   • C. Analyse the situation, identify problems, set objectives, plan and implement activities, evaluate correct
   • D. Identify problems, evaluate, set objectives, analyse the situation, implement

   Why: Objectives cannot be set before the situation is understood and problems identified, and evaluation must be designed against those objectives from the start. Programmes that set objectives first tend to define problems to fit activities already chosen.

3. A programme objective reads: 'To improve farmers' knowledge of soil health.' What is its principal weakness?

   • A. It targets knowledge rather than attitude
   • B. It concerns soil health rather than yield
   • C. It mentions farmers rather than a named barangay
   • D. It is not measurable, time-bound or specific about how much change is sought correct

   Why: An objective must state what change, in whom, by how much and by when, or evaluation has nothing to test it against. 'Improve knowledge' can be declared achieved on almost any evidence, which is why it survives so long in programme documents.

4. Farmers rank irrigation repair as their top priority; the agency's plan emphasises seed distribution. What is the most defensible response?

   • A. Revisit the plan with farmers, since felt needs drive participation correct
   • B. Proceed with seed distribution, since the agency has technical authority
   • C. Abandon the programme entirely
   • D. Distribute seed first and address irrigation only if funds remain

   Why: Programmes built on needs the community does not feel attract attendance but not commitment. Reconciling felt needs with technically identified needs is a negotiation, and starting from the farmers' priority is what earns the standing to raise others.

5. An evaluation compares yields before and after a programme and attributes all improvement to it. What is the methodological weakness?

   • A. Yield is the wrong indicator for an extension programme
   • B. No control or comparison group, so weather and other causes are not excluded correct
   • C. Before-and-after comparison is never valid
   • D. The evaluation should have been done by an external agency

   Why: Without a comparison group there is no way to separate the programme's effect from a favourable season or from changes that would have occurred anyway. Attribution, not measurement, is the difficulty in evaluating extension.

6. Which evaluation is formative rather than summative?

   • A. A final report on yield change at programme end
   • B. An economic assessment of returns after three years
   • C. A mid-season review used to adjust the training schedule correct
   • D. A terminal audit of funds spent

   Why: Formative evaluation occurs during implementation to improve the programme while it can still be changed. Summative evaluation judges the completed programme's worth. A mid-season review that changes nothing is neither -- it is documentation.

7. An extension office wants to sustain farmer groups after project funding ends. Which measure best supports sustainability?

   • A. Increase the frequency of extension worker visits
   • B. Provide larger input subsidies during the project
   • C. Extend the project timeline by two more years
   • D. Build local leadership and link groups to existing institutions and markets correct

   Why: Sustainability depends on capacity and linkages that survive the project, not on the intensity of external support while it lasts. Subsidies and visits create dependence that ends when the funding does, which is the standard pattern of project collapse.

8. A programme's logframe lists 'number of leaflets printed' as an indicator of success. At what level does this indicator sit?

   • A. Outcome level, since leaflets change behaviour
   • B. Impact level, since leaflets reach many farmers
   • C. Input or activity level, far below the outcome the programme exists to achieve correct
   • D. Output level, and therefore sufficient

   Why: Printing leaflets consumes resources; it is an activity, not a result. Indicators must climb from inputs through outputs to outcomes and impact, and a programme monitored only at the bottom of that chain can spend its whole budget without changing anything.

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Other Agriculture Extension & Communication topics

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