Index construction for functional relevance of information in farm magazines

Abstract

Most of the twenty items constructed to measure functional relevance of information in farm magazines discriminated between two articles selected to represent high and low functional relevance and has a surprisingly high reliability (α=.96). However, a factor analysis not only failed to confirm the dimension of functionally relevant information but also did not yield a clearly definable factor structure. Lacking a clear factor structure, it is difficult to recommend practical use of the index without further research. Some of the research needed concerns application of the method by larger groups of respondents. With such an expansion of data gathering, replication of the statistical analysis might lead to a firmer conclusion.