Information Seeking Pattern of School Teachers in Sri Lanka: Discovering the Associate Factors

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether any association between some of the factors selected and information-seeking activities of school teachers in Sri Lanka. A survey method was adapted and a self-administered questionnaire was distributed among school teachers who work in government schools in the Kandy district, Central province of Sri Lanka. This study extended that work to examine relationships between teachers’ information seeking activities and some of their demographical, professional and environmental factors. A series of Chi-square test of independence was conducted to examine the relationship between the selected factors such as gender, age, experience and school location and specific information seeking activities. Overall, it was found that there is no very strong evidence of relationship between the four factors and the teachers’ information seeking activities particularly information resources usage, preference of communication channels, language and locating of information. Further to that it was established that there was significant association between the teachers’ preferred information format and the four factors selected.