Abstract
The objectives of this research were to determine the knowledge needs of rural women in sheep breeding, and to determine the differences of these needs according to some variables. The research population consisted of all rural women in Al-Quair district/ Nineveh Governorate. A random Sample of 127 rural women was selected, and data were collected through questionnaire consisted of tow parts, the first was to measure the independent variables, while the second part consisted of 18 items from which distributed to seven dimensions of sheep breeding. Content validity and comparison of extreme groups were used, also, reliability was tested by using Kuder-Richardson estimates, which was 0.94. Item analysis was used, and data were analyzed by using means, mann-whitney test, and Kruskal-Wallis test. The results showed that 75.59% of the respondents have medium knowledge needs and the highest need was is sheep nutrition domain and the lowest need was in sheep barns. The results also showed no significant differences in knowledge needs according to age, educational level, working years in sheep breeding, type of family, while there were significant differences according to number of owned sheep and number of daily working hours in sheep breeding and number of information sources. The research included some conclusions and recommendations.
