Information use and productivity of agricultural engineers in Nigeria

Abstract

The study sought to determine the sources and types of information used by agricultural engineers in Nigeria and the extent to which the information usuage of agric enginneers determines their productivity level. The study made use of 261 agricultural engineers who were selected by stratified random sampling techniques according to their different places of work. Data was collected through the use of questionnaire tagged Information Utilization Scale (IUS). The data was analyzed using percentages and simple correlation statistics. The results shows that a large percentage of the respondents utilize agricultural engineering textbooks and manuals (67.8%), journal publications (66.7%), and conference/workshop papers (66.7%) to great extent. However, the result established that 67% of the respondents do not use information about laws and states, adminstrative rules and executive order. Moreover, the result shows that on the average the repondents altogether produced one published research paper, two conference paper, one extensive pamphlet, two research designs, one prototype and two- fabricated equipment per year.