Information Needs And Resources Provision for Secondary School Teachers in Imo State, Nigeria: Male Versus Female Teachers

IntroductionInformation is the hub of human development around which knowledge revolves. Information is regarded as a vital resource with which an individual functions effectively in the society.Information needs are at the centre of all areas of life because human wants are insatiable. Information needs, according to Balorinwa (2002), are desires or wants of needs to be transferred for use which prompt man to ask questions about happenings in the past, things to be done, sources and services available, things that will happen if certain things are done according to rules and regulations. Information needs are evidence of a knowledge gap which needs to be fulfilled. The identification of the gap creates room for information search and the satisfaction of the need. The teacher is the mover of learning. He facilitates learning. Like the saying that "one can only take a horse to the stream but cannot force it to drink, the child can be taken to school to learn but cannot be forced to learn except the teacher is well trained, knowledgeable of curriculum content and of child development and can apply appropriate methods and strategies to promote all-round development of the learners to enable them become countable to national development" (Chukwu, 2011). A major variable as far as information needs and information-seeking is concerned is gender. In the area of information communication services, a gender gap in their use has reduced opportunities for women in the ICT workforce, and teachers are not left out. Researches carried out by Durndell and Thomson (1997),Whitely (1997), and Kadijevich, (2000) noted that females have less computer experience and hold less favourable attitudes towards computers than their male counterparts. Jackson et al. (2001) pointed out that the advent of the Internet for information retrieval and the widespread use of e-mail failed to have an impact on female attitude to computers, despite the fact that there are more female-friendly tasks such as communicating with others via e-mail and accessing information of all kinds. So there is a possibility of difference in the information seeking behaviour of males and females especially with the advent of electronic information resources and sources. Adeoye and Popoola (2011) stressed that teachers need various kinds of information for teaching and research for the purposes of imparting knowledge in students and for self-development. The information needs and information-seeking behavior of male and female secondary school teachers should be a matter of urgent concern, since the extent to which the teachers are informed determines to a large extent the knowledge to be imparted to the students. Moreover, the information needs and ways of seeking information may differ between males and females. This led the researchers to investigate the information needs of secondary school teachers in Imo State, Nigeria, bearing in mind that the picture is very similar in most states of Nigeria.Objectives of the studyThis study was intended to ascertain the information needs and seeking behaviour of teachers in Nigerian secondary schools. The study specifically aimed toFind out the information needs of male and female secondary school teachers in Imo State.Find out the information sources utilized by the secondary school teachers in Imo State.Determine the extent to which the information needs of male and female secondary school teachers are satisfied.Research questionsWhat are the information needs of male and female secondary school teachers in Imo State? What are the information sources utilized by the secondary school teachers in Imo State? To what extent are the information needs of male and female secondary school teachers in Imo State being met? HypothesisThe following hypothesis was considered for the study.H01: There is no significant difference (P > 0.05) between the mean satisfaction of information needs of male and female teachers in Imo State. …