INFORMATION NEED AND SEEKING BEHAVIOUR OF NURSING STUDENTS UNIVERSITY OF JOS

ABSTRACT This study was on “information needs and seeking behavior of nursing students of University of Jos. Four objectives were formulated to guide the study which include to: Identify the information needs of Nursing students in Department of Nursing sciences, Faculty of Health Science and Technology, University of Jos Identify the sources of information that Nursing Students in the Department of Nursing Sciences and Technology, Faculty of Health Science, University of Jos are familiar with. To also Identify the information seeking behavior of Nursing students in the Department of Nursing Science, Faculty of Health Science and Technology, University of Jos, To further Identify the problems encountered by the Nursing students in the Department of Nursing Sciences, Faculty of Health Science and Technology when seeking information in University of Jos. The population consist of 700 students of nursing department, a sample of 100 respondents was taken, simple random sampling technique was used to select sample; descriptive survey research design was adopted while questionnaire was developed as research instrument used to obtain data from the respondents. The data obtained was analyzed based on the questionnaire returned by the respondents which was 100, showing a response rate of 100%. For analyzing the data, frequency tables and simple percentages were used in analyzing the data. The findings revealed that, textbooks, Newspapers/Magazines, Electronic Resources, Reference resources and Journals/articles students need information for coursework and long-life learning. The findings revealed that textbooks, newspapers, magazines electronic resources, reference resources and journal are crucial for meeting student information needs for course work and lifelong learning the findings also indicated that the primary sources of information for nursing students are textbooks and e-books and it was concluded that the lack of availability of indexing and abstracting services and lack of up-to-date information are significant challenges. The researcher recommended that the management of the university library should make available indexes and abstract for electronic resources and non-electronic resources a priority, the library should provide up to date materials for students, provision of e-library network, train students with requisite skills and the students should be trained on literacy skills in other to be able to use the search engines and surf the internet.