Communication and Extension Education: Process, Teaching Methods and Programme Planning
The communication process
Communication is the exchange of meaning. Elements: sender → message → channel → receiver → feedback, with noise interfering at any point. Encoding turns ideas into words or symbols; decoding interprets them. Communication may be verbal or non-verbal (gesture, posture, facial expression, tone), formal or informal, one-way or two-way. Two-way communication with feedback is more effective for changing behaviour.
Extension teaching methods
- Individual contact: home visit, farm visit, telephone call, personal letter - good for solving individual problems, costly per person.
- Group contact: lecture, group discussion, method demonstration, result demonstration, field trip, exhibition.
- Method demonstration - the worker shows how to do something, such as preparing a weaning food.
- Result demonstration - shows the outcome of a practice to persuade others, such as a neighbour's yield plot.
- Mass contact: radio, television, newspaper, poster, leaflet, social media - reaches many quickly but gives little feedback.
Programme planning
Steps: identify needs → set objectives → plan activities and resources → implement → evaluate → replan. A good teaching aid must be accurate, relevant, simple, visible and suited to the audience.
Worked example
An extension worker must teach 25 mothers to prepare a low-cost weaning mix. Reasoning: 25 people call for a group method; a method demonstration in which the mothers repeat the preparation builds skill and gives immediate feedback. A poster alone is mass media and would inform but not build skill.
Traps
- Calling a poster a group method - it is mass contact.
- Confusing method demonstration with result demonstration.
- Describing the process without feedback, which is the element most often examined.