Browsing by Author "Vitalis, Onesphor"

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    Information needs and information seeking behaviour of education officials in Kinondoni district, Dar es Salaam region, Tanzania
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2016) Vitalis, Onesphor
    The study assessed information needs and information seeking behaviour of officials in education. The study employed both qualitative and quantitative research approaches. Cluster sampling procedure was used to select the ward education officials in Kinondoni Municipality. Purposive sampling procedure was used to select district education officials from academic, statistics and inspectorate units. Random sampling procedure was used to get school heads. Primary data were collected through questionnaires which contained closed and open - ended questions. Secondary data were collected through library search. The discussion followed the sequential organization of the research questions and the results were presented in various forms such as narration, graphs, charts and tables. Frequencies and percentages were used to show descriptive statistics. The analysis was done was done by using SPSS version 16, MS Word 2007 and MS Excel 2007. Findings from the study indicated that Education Officials access information by consulting their co-workers, by perusing official files and documents, by reading books and seminar as well as conference handouts. Most information was needed for decision making, planning and for updating knowledge. It was also found that Education Officials encounter several barriers including lack of electronic equipments, little computer knowledge, poor networking and associated cost. The study concludes that in order to satisfy information needs and information seeking behaviour of the Education Officials in Kinondoni Municipality and in Tanzania in general the government should do its best to ensure that each ward has an information resource centre with enough ICT equipments. This will create an environment where the right information is accessible in time for decisions making when planning and implementing various education policies as directed by government authorities. The study recommends that the government should ensure that Education Officials are given short computer courses periodically so as to enable them be conversant on how to search, browse and retrieve information from various sources. Again, various obstacles including negative attitude of the heads of departments in government and private sectors, bureaucracy, poor records management and lack of knowledge of librarianship should be minimized. University colleges and embassies which are in the district should market their libraries so that the Education Officials and the whole community can take advantage of their existence to fulfill their thirsty for information.