The knowledge needs of rural women in the field of sheep breeding in Hamrin sub-district / Al-Dur - Salah Al-Din Governorate

• Huda Ibrahim Fadel Al-Douri (1)، Maha Saeed Shada (2).

  Author

This study aimed to Identifying the knowledge needs of rural women in the field of sheep breeding in Hamrin district/Al-Dur - Salah Al-Din Governorate in general., and to identify the level of knowledge needs of rural women in sheep breeding in Hamrin sub-district / Al-Dur district in each of the study areas nutrition health care, reproduction, and flock management. The study population included all rural women working in sheep breeding in Hamrin sub-district, Al-Dur district, Salah al-Din Governorate, to talin  (150)  rural women. After excluding the pilot sample of (30) respondents from the total study population, the study population became (120) respondents.  From these, a simple proportional random sample of   was selected, resulting in (105) respondents from the study sample. Data were (70%) obtained through personal interviews and a questionnaire. The first part of the questionnaire included a number of questions related to some variables concerning the respondents, while the second part include  (49) The item was distributed across (4) domains: nutrition domain, reproduction domain, healthcare domain, herd management domain. It was presented to experts to achieve face validity and content validity, and its reliability coefficient using Cronbach's alpha was (0.90), which is statistically high. The SPSS program was used to analyze the data. The study employed a set of statistical methods to analyze the data, the most important of which are (range, class length, percentage, arithmetic mean, Pearson correlation coefficient, Spearman correlation coefficient, Cronbach's alpha coefficient, standard deviation, percentile weight, and the (t) test. The results showed that the overall level of knowledge needs of rural women in the field of sheep breeding in the study area is described as average, tending towards high. We conclude from this that they need knowledge to reduce this gap formed in their knowledge in the field of sheep breeding. The results showed that the level of knowledge needs of rural women in the field of sheep breeding in the study area for the following areas: nutrition, reproduction, health care, flock management was high. We conclude from this that the high level of knowledge needs may reflect a lack of knowledge among rural women, i.e., the higher the level of knowledge needs, the lower the level of actual knowledge and the greater the knowledge gap. The study recommended the necessity of preparing and implementing specialized extension programs based on an accurate identification of the knowledge needs of rural women to ensure reducing the gap between the actual knowledge and the required level. The study also recommended providing institutional and governmental support for women's sheep breeding projects through training and veterinary services.

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