INFORMATION NEEDS AND SEEKING BEHAVIOUR OF STUDENTS OF THE NIGERIAN ARMY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, SOBI BARRACKS, ILORIN, NIGERIA.

The environment in which human being, particularly, students operate makes information to be one of the decisive factors for survival. Students seek information to fill an identified gap in their quest for knowledge. This study, therefore, investigated information needs and seeking behaviour of students of the Nigerian Army School of Education, Ilorin, Nigeria. Five (5) research objectives were formulated for this study. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. Population for the study comprised of students at the Nigerian Army School of Education, Ilorin. Israel (2003) model for determining sample size was used to calculate the sample size with precision levels of 5% and confidence level of 95% and the recommended sample size was two hundred and twelve (212). A simple random sampling technique was used to select the samples from the population. The self-designed questionnaire was divided into six (6) sections. The content-related approach of validation was conducted to ensure the validity of the instrument while Cronbach alpha was used to test the reliability of the instrument and the overall reliability of the instrument was r = 0.832. The collated copies of the questionnaire were analyzed with the IBM SPSS version 21.0 using simple frequency counts and percentage. The presentations of the data for the research objectives were done using tables, pie charts and bar charts. The findings of the study showed that academic information is the major information need of the students of the Nigerian Army School of Education, Ilorin, Nigeria. The findings further revealed that the Internet and library are the most commonly used sources of information. The findings also showed that the major purpose at which the students seek information is to update their knowledge and to enhance their professional activities. However, the findings generally indicated that most students firstly acknowledge their information needs and compare available resources before making the final decision and if they seem not comfortable with the information they need in a particular information material, they will continue searching for information until they are satisfied. Among numerous challenges affecting information seeking behaviour of students, this study found insufficient library opening hours as the major challenge confronting the students of the Nigerian Army School of Education. The study, therefore, recommended that library working hours should be extended to meet the need of the students and that the library management should ensure that adequate collection of books is made available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]