| dc.description.abstract | This study explored some of the factors which influence information channel preferences for accessing educational materials among secondary school teachers in Keiyo district of Kenya. The study was mainly informed by the theoretical postulations espoused by
pioneering communication scholars such as Katz, Blumler and Joseph Klapper under the uses and gratifications perspective, which consider media audiences as active participants in the communication process in this regard, effort was made to establish whether teachers are an active audience who choose from the available range of channels those that suit their needs of accessing information relating to their
profession.
This was done by way of examining the various factors which teachers consider while choosing media channels for accessing information from among the various possible functional alternatives at their disposal, in line with the postulations set forth in the uses and gratifications approach to communication.
Blumler and Katz's uses and gratification theory suggests that media users play an active role in choosing and using the media. Users take an active part in the communication process and are goal oriented in their media use. The two theorists further argue that a media user seeks out a media source that best fulfills the needs of the user. Uses
and gratifications assume that the user has alternate choices to satisfy their need. To investigate these issues, this study adopted a survey research methodology where views were solicited from key informants to enrich data collected through the survey. The target population comprised high school teachers in Keiyo district of Kenya. The study sample was drawn using a multistage sampling approach.
The following objectives guided the study;
• What factors influence choice of information channels for accessing educational materials among high school teachers in Keiyo district
• Which socio-structural factors inhibit use of certain information channels for accessing educational materials among secondary school teachers in Keiyo district
• The need to establish whether teachers in Keiyo district are an active audience which proactively searches for information relating to their profession
• Set out specific recommendations on information channel preferences by secondary school teachers as well as factors, which inhibit use of certain channels.
In a nutshell, the results of this study indicate that high school teachers in Keiya district do, indeed exercise a degree of choice and preference in regard to, channels of information that they ultimately attend to, in search of infarmatian relevant to, their profession.
It also emerged that various personal as well as social-structural factors influence media channel choices made by individual high school teachers in Keiya district. At the level of personality factors, one's attitude and perceptions of a given media channel and personal career aspirations were seen as being strong determinants of the choice of media channels far accessing information.
The results invariably lend credibility to, the argument that even among individuals of similar demographic and ideological backgrounds, the motivations to, attend to, various media and particular messages within them- and gratifications obtained from exposure vary widely. This indeed means that media audiences are not passive actors in the communication process.
Beyond the normal attention given to, source. channel, message and receiver, the perspective of communication that this study follows is that which acknowledges that there are several at her equally important underpinning factors which influence the communication process. The study puts emphasis an the fact that focus an the end users of information and the considerations they make in choosing channels and whether to, attend to, messages is critical to, understanding the communication process.
The big effects theorists of the 1920s, saw media audiences as passive actors in the communication process. This implied that the communication process was unidirectional with messages originating from the sender and received by the receiver without any form of action in the reverse direction. However, the strong influence of personality factors such as attitude, perceptions, personal career goals and other personal considerations as important variables which underpin the communication process clearly disapprove the notion that suggested among other things that media audiences are homogenous and by extension, they were bound to attend to the same media channels without objections or exercising the privilege of choice in regard to what suits their needs and circumstances.
The study showed that high school teachers in Keiyo district are an active audience who do not just wait for information to reach them from the ministry of education. They engage in active information seeking behavior by way of subscribing to various specialized educational magazines and bulletins. This very act of engaging in active information seeking enables them to expand the range of information channel choices available for accessing useful information related to their professional pursuits. This behavior is in line with the active audience perspective central to the uses and gratifications approach.
The findings of this study also show that teachers in Keiyo district have a good idea about which channels of communication serve their information needs better. The results showed that they preferred channels that are efficient in information relay, easy and cheap to access. It would be instructive for the Ministry of Education to utilize
channels of communication that are preferred by teachers in any particular locality of the country. According to the results, most teachers are out of touch with their employer, mainly due to the fact that Ministry of Education communication channels are slow and therefore inefficient in serving their information needs. It would be of great benefit if the ministry invested in channels that are efficient for information delivery to ensure timely dissemination of information to teachers in the field. Although the 21st century is taunted as the information age, it is clear from the findings of this study that teachers in rural localities like Keiyo district of Kenya are disadvantaged by structural factors such as
availability and access to modern channels of communication like the internet and computers. This clearly limits the channel choices they make for accessing information. The lesson here is that as we endeavor as a country to modernize the educational sector, due attention has to be given to the plight of teachers and others who require quick and efficient access to information in regions of the country that are far removed from urban set-ups, so that regional disparities can be eliminated. Resources will need to be set aside for increasing rural teachers' capacities to utilize new media especially the
internet, as a way of widening the functional information resource alternatives available for their use.
The results of this study on the whole, point to one instructive reality; that in planning communication, it is important to go beyond the traditional models of communication in which communication is seen as a linear process which merely involves a communicator or source, a message and an audience. Other perspectives of the communication dynamic, for instance the uses and gratifications approach as demonstrated by this study clearly show that there are other equally vital considerations that need to be taken into account to realize communication.
If this reality was to be taken as a strong consideration informing communications plans within the Kenyan Ministry of Education, it should result in better relations between teachers in the field and their employer at the ministry Headquarters in Nairobi. It is clear from the results of this study that teachers feel alienated from their employer largely as a result of the communication strategy adopted by the ministry. | en |
