Information needs and seeking behaviour of distance learning students of University of Lagos, Nigeria

Abstract

Information need is a universally widespread essential feature of production, consumption and exchange of human mental creativity across the globe. The objective of the study was to assess the information needs, seeking behavior and sources used by the Distance Leaning Students of University of Lagos. The survey research design method was adopted for the study with a structured questionnaire. Stratified random sampling was used to select respondents from the study population of 10,457 in three departments to give a sample size of 3%. The data analysis employed was the descriptive statistical measure such as percentages and frequency distribution. The data collected shows that 26.7% of the respondents accessed information on financial matters, 20.7% accessed information on education matters and 16.0% of the respondents accessed information on sports. Also, 54.9% of the respondents had been using the library as source of information for the past five years and 60.0% of the distance learners agreed that newspapers/magazines and TV/Radio were frequently used as source to information.

Keywords: information needs, information seeking, information utilization, information sources, distance learning, distance education