Information needs and information seeking behaviour of teacher educations in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The study was designed to find out the information needs and information seeking behaviour of Sri Lankan teacher educators. A total of 70 teacher educators were randomly selected in 6 teacher education institutes from the eastern province of Sri Lanka. Questionnaires were administrated through the heads of the institutions. A total 58 (82.8%) usable questionnaires were considered for the data analysis. Based on the analysis, most of the teacher educators' information needs were focused around their professional development, handling the teacher trainees problems, and their continuing education. Libraries, informal and interpersonal channels were the preferred channels for seeking information by the teacher educators. Formal mass media was not preferred as an information channel. The main sources of information were journals and books, while newspapers and Internet came next. A small number of teacher educators mentioned seminars and conferences as their information sources. The main obstacles in meeting the information needs were sources being unavailable. The study found other barriers including "inadequate time to access", "knowing the location of information" and "lack of English knowledge". Other findings indicate a large percentage (64%) of teacher educators were not using the computer for any purpose. A lesser percentage of teacher educators were using computers for typing work and entertainment, rather than for seeking and processing information_ The results of this study also show that support from the institutional libraries was poor for fulfilling their information needs. The results show teacher educators strongly agree the statement on "improving the information seeking behaviour is very important for professional development".