Research On Information Needs And Information Seeking Behavior Of African International Students

China’s opening to the outside world is becoming larger and larger,and the number of African students coming to study in China is increasing year by year.In this study,African International students in Jiangsu University are taken as the case study and a new information search behavior model is constructed.The new model was applied to the empirical study and influence of student age and study program as independent variables on information need,information sourcing and usage of information services as well as challenges were assessed.The study is conducted within the theoretical framework based on the synthesis of existing models of information-seeking behavior proposed by Kuhlthau(2005),Bates(1989),Ellis(1989),Dervin(1983),and Wilson(1981)along with additional innovative information seeking resources.The study adopted data collection through mixed-method approach consisting of qualitative and quantitative.The quantitative approached consisted of a structured survey questionnaire sent to 350 African International students in the university and the qualitative approach consisted of 20 face-to-face interviews.Descriptive analysis following coding and data organization in SPSS was done.Cross tabulations and Pearson chi-square analysis were used to establish relationships between variables studied and results presented in tables and figures.From the cross tabulation and chisquare method of analysis,the significance of information sources can be reported that information sources such as the internet(p=0.000),library(p=0.000),academic database(p=0.000),radio(p=0.005),television(p=0.001),academic notes(p=0.001)had statistically significant relationship with the age of international students seeking for information.Colleagues(p=0.05)and lecturers(p=0.05)had marginal significance with the age of international students.But information sought from international student’s affair office and newspapers were not statistically significant.Beside internet use being the major preference,some students used the library and printed textbook and journal articles.Concerning information needs,most international students search for higher education related information,followed by study-related searches.The significance of information need to international students’ ages was analyzed using chi-squared analysis and it was established that employment,health,and sports related to information needs prospected for the study were insignificant to the relationship with international students’ age but all the others were either marginally significant or significant.Apparently,information sources considered by international students relatively have a relationship with their study program as the analysis performed outlines that internet(p=0.000),library(p=0.000),radio(p=0.005),television(p=0.001),academic notes(p=0.001),academic database(p=0.000)as sources of information significantly related with the study program of international students.However,information sourced from colleagues(p=0.05)lecturers of international students(p=0.05)were marginally correlated with their study program,and correlation between study program and information sought from international students office and newspapers were not statistically significant.With regards to the computer aided qualitative analysis,through NVivo 11 Plus software,and grounded theory coding on In-depth interviews data,the study observed that students go through six generic processes of information seeking,thus Initiation,Selection,Exploration,Focus formulation,Collection,and Presentation to achieve their academic and personal purposes.Challenges highlighted by international students regarding information search and use related to internet connectivity,campus WIFI accessibility,language,and accessibility to academic databases were investigated.According to analysis results,suggestions to improve the information needs of African international students consist of four points: The university should improve campus information infrastructure;The library has to increase foreign language resource construction and information literacy training;The Overseas Education School has to set up a platform for online and offline combination of information literacy with the library to help international students improve their information utilization;And international students should make full use of relevant courses and training to improve their information ability and thus promote learning and research efficiency.Finally,the applicability of the new model developed in this study was successfully tested and it was found that information seeking processes of African International students could be readily matched to the various stages of the model,suggesting that,in general terms,information seeking behavior follows a universally applicable pattern and that a model developed on the basis of a research in one place of the world can be transferred to use in other places.