| Purpose. The primary objective of this research was to describe and compare the perceptions of state program leaders, extension supervisors, subject-matter specialists, county chairpersons, area extension agents, department chairpersons and county extension agents of the Washington Cooperative Extension with regard to the importance and extent of performance of the role of the extension supervisor in program development. A second objective of the study was to investigate the relationships between the perceptions of the role of the extension supervisor and the sex, age, position, level of formal education, subject-matter specialty, years of tenure, frequency of contact with suprvisor, and job satisfaction of the respondents. Another objective was to investigate the relationship between the perceived importance of the role of the extension supervisor in program development and the perceived extent of performance of the role.;Methodology. A three-part questionnaire was developed and mailed to 240 potential respondents. The questionnaires were not coded, and no follow-up request was made directly by the researcher. All information supplied by respondents was treated anonymously. Fifty-seven percent of the potential respondents provided usable responses. The design of the study was descriptive correlational research.;Findings. A majority of the respondents perceived the tasks in program development as either very important or most important. This means that area agents, county agents, county chairpersons, department chairpersons, supervisors, program leaders, and specialists of the Washington Cooperative Extension had similar perceptions concerning the importance of the role of the district supervisor in program development. It should be noted that supervisors, program leaders, department chairpersons, and specialists consistently rate the tasks slightly higher in importance than do area agents, county agents, and county chairpersons.;Generally, the relationships between perceptions of importance of program development tasks and characteristics of respondents are negligible or low. The magnitude of the relationships and their consistency among the groups of respondents are not sufficient to identify any of the demographic characteristics included in the study as factors that explain variability in the respondents' perceptions of the importance of program development tasks.;A majority of the respondents perceived that the tasks of the Extension supervisor in program development are fairly well performed. Task performance was rated on a scale including the categories of not performed, performed poorly, performed fairly well, performed well, and performed very well. However, it should be noted that county chairpersons, department chairpersons, supervisors and program leaders consistently rate performance of the tasks slightly higher than do area agents, county agents, and specialists.;Generally, the relationships between perceptions of extent of performance of program development tasks and characteristics of respondents are negligible or low. The magnitude of the relationships and their consistency among the groups of respondents are not sufficient to identify any of the demographic characteristics included in the study as factors that explain variability in the respondents' perceptions of the extent of performance of program development tasks.;Generally, the relationships between how important the role of the Extension supervisor is perceived to be and the extent to which the role is perceived to be performed are positive and moderate to strong. It should be noted however that the perceptions of area agents and department chairpersons consistently showed a higher degree of relationship while the perceptions of supervisors consistently showed a lower degree of relationship than the perceptions of county agents, county chairpersons, program leaders, and specialists. |
