The Construct of Extension from the University Faculty Perspective

This study aimed to determine the construct of extension from the university faculty perspective and the relationship between demographic profile and extension involvement. Twenty-eight faculty members were purposively selected with considerations such as employment status (contractual, temporary and permanent), at least four years in service, and present on that day of distribution of questionnaire forms. Both descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS program and Wordle application were used to analyze data. Results showed that 58% of the respondents are female; 54% are contractual; 1-10 years in service; 1-5 years in doing extension with 1-5 extension involvement commonly gift-giving and clean- up drive; gender is related to extension involvement; there is a substantial positive relationship between employment status and extension involvement; only 41% of the variance in extension involvement can be attributed to the combined effect of years in service and years in doing extension; nature of extension is service; the purpose of extension is formative; and the level of engagement is already engaged. Based on the obtained results, the study concluded that there are more female contractual faculty members involved in extension activities; gender, employment status, years in service and years in doing extension are related to number of extension involvement of faculty members; the construct of extension is perceived as HEIs’ function to help the needs and in the development of the community since extension is still on the nature of service with formative purpose. Yet, they agree that university extension is already engaged.

Keywords –extension, nature, purpose and level of engagement of extension, university extension