INFORMATION LITERACY SKILLS AS FACTORS INFLUENCING RESEARCH PRODUCTIVITY OF ACADEMIC STAFF IN NIGERIAN FEDERAL UNIVERSITIES

Background:
Research occupies a critical role in promoting the prosperity of a nation and its citizens’ well-being. In universities, recognition and advancement of individual academic staff members depend largely on the quantity and quality of their research productivity. Existing studies have dealt with academics’ research productivity with variables such as institutional size, academic status, age, gender, and others latent variables such as self-knowledge, self-efficacy and information utilization skills but these studies have not sufficiently revealed the influence of information literacy skills on academics research productivity. Therefore, this study will investigate information literacy skills as predicting factor on academics research productivity in Nigerian federal universities.

Objectives of the Study:
The general objective of this study is to investigate the information literacy skills of academics and availability of information resources as factors influencing research productivity of academic staff in Nigerian federal universities. The specific objectives are to:
1. Investigate how academics acquire their information literacy skills;
2. Determine the information literacy skills possessed by academics staff in Nigerian federal universities;
3. Examine the level of research productivity of the academic staff in Nigerian federal universities;

Research Questions:
The study will answer three research questions derived from the general and specific objectives.
1. What methods do academic staff members use to acquire information literacy skills?
2. What are the information literacy skills possessed by academic staff members in Nigerian universities?
3. What is the level of research productivity of the academic staff in Nigerian federal universities?

Sampling Procedure:
The study would adopt a multi- stage sampling procedure. First, the universities would be grouped into the existing six geo-political zones in Nigeria. Second, two universities would be randomly selected from each of the six geo-political zones. Third, a sampling frame of 10% of academics in each of the universities would be selected. Four, the instrument would be distributed equally among the entire faculties in the selected universities. Using the quota sampling based on specified proportion sample size of 10%. Finally, the accidental (availability) sampling technique would be employed to select each of the respondents from the quota allotted to each of the faculties in the selected universities.