Information Literacy Skills And Availability Of Nformation Resources As Factors Influencing Research Productivity Of Academic Staff Of Federal Universities In Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Research productivity requiring information resources is a measure of academic success. The volume of information resources potentially available to academic staff is massive hence there is a need for information literacy skills to access these, evaluate, and effectively utilize available information for research productivity. Several studies have examined academics’ research productivity using variables, such as institutional factors, demographic characteristics and information utilization skills. However, these studies have not adequately addressed the influence of information literacy skills and availability of information resources on research productivity of academics. This study, therefore, examined the influence of information literacy skills and availability of information resources on research productivity of academic staff in federal universities in Nigeria. Descriptive survey research design was adopted. The Multistage sampling technique was used to select 1,057 academic staff members from twelve federal universities in the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. The categories of academic staff covered in the study were from professorial cadre to graduate assistant. The instruments used for data collection were: Information Literacy Skills (r=0.92), Literacy Skills Acquisition (r= 0.83), Availability of Information Resources (r= 0.69) and Research Productivity of Academics (r=0.91). Eight hundred and seventy-three copies of the questionnaire were used for analysis. Seven research questions were answered and three hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and multiple regression. Information literacy skills correlated significantly with academics’ research productivity (r=0.47; df=87: p