2. DEVELOPMENT OF A SCALE TO MEASURE THE ATTITUDE OF CATTLE KEEPERS TOWARDS THE CONSERVATION OF NATIVE CATTLE

Attitudes are constructs which are crucial in enhancing our understanding of the motives behind decisions of people as well as the reasons behind the way in which they behave. Quantitative methods help research workers to make comparisons of the conservation attitude of one cattle keeper with that of another and to describe, analyze and even explain cattle keeper behaviour by correlating variables with each other and extrapolating the results to a larger population. In was in this context that the present study was undertaken to construct a scale to measure the attitude of keepers of Kasargod cattle towards native cattle. In the present study, attitude was conceptualized as an important determinant of the respondent’s behaviour in conserving the Kasargod cattle. A scale to measure the attitude of keepers of Kasargod cattle towards native cattle was developed by the Lickert method of summated ratings. The final format of the scale consisted of twenty statements (Table 1) with the highest ‘t’ values. The scale can be administered to a target population on a three-point continuum viz., agree, undecided, disagree with scores of 3, 2 and 1 in the casesof positive statements and the reverse in the case of negative statements.

Key words : Attitude, Cattle keepers, Native cattle