A comparative study of professionals' and volunteers' attitudes regarding volunteer involvement in program management: A focus on Four-H

This study examined the attitudes of Extension professionals and 4-H volunteers regarding the use of volunteers to manage county-level 4-H programs, and their perceptions of appropriateness and importance of particular program management tasks for volunteers. Within-group and between-group differences were studied.; Seventy-seven percent of the Extension professionals (n = 83) employed by the Hawaii Cooperative Extension Service, and approximately 50% of the 4-H leaders (n = 351) who were active at the time of the study responded to a mailed questionnaire. Independent variables for Extension professionals were (1) prior experience working with volunteers, (2) perception of volunteers' motives for volunteering, (3) length of CES employment, and (4) type of CES position held. Independent variables for the 4-H volunteers were (1) number of different types of volunteer responsibilities undertaken, (2) motives for volunteering, (3) length of 4-H volunteer service, and (4) level of education attained. Analysis of Variance, Multivariate Analysis of Variance, and the Student-Newman-Keuls procedures were used to analyze the data.; Extension professionals differed when compared by type of CES position held. Human Resources/4-H professionals had a more favorable attitude toward the idea of using volunteers in program management, and they rated more tasks as appropriate for volunteers than did Agriculture professionals. Ranking of the importance of having particular tasks performed by volunteers also differed.; Volunteers differed in their attitudes and perceptions, when grouped by motives for volunteering. Volunteers who were strongly other-directed in their motives had a significantly more favorable attitude about using volunteers in program management. Volunteers who were more self-directed in their motives rated more tasks as appropriate for volunteers and they ranked different tasks as important in comparison to volunteers who were not as strong in this motive category.; Human Resources/4-H Extension professionals had a significantly more favorable attitude than did the subgroups of volunteers. The volunteers who were more highly self-directed, however, perceived the greatest number of tasks to be appropriate.; Implications for program planning to facilitate implementation of a volunteer program management system were examined.