The COVID-19 outbreak has generated extreme vulnerability in the agriculture sector. Extension Advisory Service (EAS) systems have been playing a crucial role at the frontline of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in rural areas. So, it is need of the hour to study extension officials’ attitude in delivering advisory services to farmers even during this pandemic situation. The overall objective of the study is to develop a scale to measure extension officials’ attitude towards their advisory services during COVID-19. Scale Discrimination Technique (SDT) was followed to develop the attitude scale. The procedure included Thurstone scaling, item analysis and scalogram analysis, and resulted in a largely unidimensional scale with a wide diverseness of item content and range of scores, corrected as far as possible for the operation of response styles, and possessing high reliability. Out of 60 statements, initially 30 statements selected using Thurstone scaling and further analysis done by summated ratings and phi coefficient calculated for those 30 statements and finally the developed scale consists of two forms A and B with 12 statements using Guttman scalogram analysis. The coefficient of reproducibility (Rep) of the two forms (0.856 and 0.956) gives the scale as a whole a Rep of 0.91, which implies that the scale is satisfactorily unidimensional with a standardized measure of reliability and validity. The developed scale used to study the extension officials’ attitude towards their advisory services which shows their attitude and it also helps them to strengthen their way of providing advisory services to farmers.

Keyword: Scale discrimination technique; Attitude scale; Unidimensionality; Advisory services.