The Investigation of Attitudes of Agricultural Students of Mohaghegh Ardabili University towards Occupation in Rural Areas and Factors Affecting

Regarding the importance of employment in the rural areas, as one of the most important policies in agricultural higher education programs, nevertheless a significant proportion of graduated does not involve in rural activity. So this study was aimed to investigate the attitudes of agricultural students towards occupation in rural areas. The study was a correlation- descriptive survey and target population consisted of agricultural students of the University of Mohaghegh Ardabili in the 2016-2017 educational year (N=1192). Sample size determined using Cochran formula as 170 people and stratified random sampling method was used as a sampling method. The main research instrument was questionnaire which its validity confirmed by the panel of expert and reliability approved by AVE with the value of 0.40 to 0.48 and CR coefficient with a value of 0.77 to 0.88. The results indicated that almost 55% of respondents had the positive and relatively positive attitude towards occupation in rural areas. Also based on comparative analysis significant differences were found regarding gender and living place in term of attitude as boys and rural students had more favorite attitudes towards occupation in rural areas. Based on correlational analysis there were a significant statistical relationship between families’ income, years of living in rural areas and students’ interest with attitude. The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) also showed that three factors of "entrepreneurial individual characteristics", "social and economic factors", and "government supportive policies" explained about 86 percent of variance in dependent variable of attitudes toward occupation in rural areas.