INFORMATION SEEKING BEHAVIOUR AS DETERMINANTS OF UNDERGRADUATES' USE OF INTERNET SEARCH ENGINES IN TWO UNIVERSITIES IN OYO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study investigated information seeking behaviours as determinants of undergraduates' use of Internet search engines in two universities in Oyo State, Nigeria. The finding shows that majority of the undergraduate students preferred to use Google and Yahoo! to surf information resources on the Web when faced with academic task and are overwhelmed with the amount of information retrieved by these search engines, due to its ease of use, speed of access, quality and quantity of information. The study also shows that there is significant relationship between Internet search engines and information seeking behaviour. Therefore, university libraries should sensitize students by creating awareness of numnerous functional Internet search engines and their search mechanism and also make provision for effective access to and use of the Internet.