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May 11, 2025Keywords:
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Main Article Content
Utilization of Mobile Phone Application for Improved Service Delivery Among Extension Agents in Southwest, Nigeria
Abstract
The study assessed the utilization of mobile phone applications for improved service delivery among extension agents in southwest, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 100 extension agents. Data were obtained with the use of structured questionnaires and were analyzed using descriptive statistics while Chi-square and Pearson's Product Moment Correlation were employed for testing the hypotheses. Results revealed a mean age of 45 years for the extension agents. The majority (74.0%) were male with a very high literacy level. The extension agents had a mean age of 15 years of experience and an average of 1:2570 extension agent-farmer ratio. Extension agents had a high (53.0%) usage of mobile phone applications for improved service delivery with WhatsApp and Facebook being the most used. Also, extension agents had a good (53.0%) perception of the effects of mobile phone utilization. Some of the socio-economic characteristics that influenced the utilization of the mobile phone application for improved service delivery were marital status (ꭕ2= 9.301), educational level (ꭕ2= 9.828), household size (ꭕ2= 4.889), years of professional experience (ꭕ2= 7.737), had professional training in service delivery (ꭕ2= 12.604), access to resources needed to deliver extension service (ꭕ2= 52.241) and utilization of smartphone application (r= -0.285). Conclusively, over half of agents showed high usage of mobile phone applications. It is recommended that there is a need for enhanced knowledge levels through training and retraining and the provision of a supportive environment for agricultural extension agents aimed at improved utilization and benefits associated with mobile phone applications.
