Evaluation and Use of Needed Information as Correlates Research Productivity among Lecturers in Federal Universities in North-West, Nigeria

Abstract

Information must be gathered and interpreted for research purposes. With the development of Information Communication Technologies (ICT), anyone could publish anything they wanted, and the legitimacy of the content on web pages is not guaranteed by any supervising body or regulatory entity. The internet has a lot of reliable information, but it also contains a lot of dubious items. This calls for the acquisition of skills that enable lecturers to search and select the best information. The paper examined evaluation and use of needed information as correlates of research productivity among lecturers in federal universities in North-West, Nigeria. Two research questions guided the study and two hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The descriptive correlational research design was employed. The population of the study was 9,839 lecturers of 12 federal universities in the north-west states of Nigeria. The sample size of the study was 368 lecturers, and a random selection of respondents was made from each university. The research instrument was administered to the respondents directly by the researchers. The returned copies of the questionnaire were analysed using inferential statistics. The Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient r was used to answer the research questions and regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Findings from data analysis revealed that, there is significant weak positive relationship between lecturers’ score on the ability to evaluate information and research productivity in the federal universities in the North-West, Nigeria. It was also found that there is a significant weak positive relationship between lecturers’ scores on the ability to use needed information and research productivity in the federal universities in the North-West, Nigeria. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended among otters that lecturers should engage on personal development by taking online courses and furthering their education in order to acquire information literacy skills required for research productivity. The university libraries should make available all necessary and sufficient information resources that will enhance lecturers’ research productivity and make sure they are accessible.

Keywords: Evaluation, Needed Information Research Productivity, Federal Universities, Nigeria

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