Investigation of information-seeking behavior of secondary school English teachers for preparing lesson plan

This study aims to explore sources of information selected by secondary school English teachers when preparing lesson plans, their awareness of information, and their constraints while seeking information for preparing lesson plans. This qualitative study employed semi-structured interviews to gather data from 15 English teachers at secondary schools in Batam City, Indonesia, via Zoom meeting application. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze the interview data. The findings reveal that secondary school English teachers follow a threestage pattern in selecting and utilizing information sources: primary, secondary, and tertiary (or complementary). In the primary stage, teachers rely on formal internal sources due to their trustworthiness, accessibility, and familiarity when preparing lesson plans. In the secondary stage, the English teachers turn to informal-external sources to create more engaging and diverse lesson plans that capture student interest. In the tertiary stage, teachers use oral-personal sources to validate their plans through consultation with other English teachers, especially when facing information-seeking constraints. This study has several limitations. Firstly, it is limited to a sample of 15 English teachers, which may not be representative of the broader population. Secondly, the focus solely on English teachers suggests that the findings related to the awareness of information sources and access constraints may not be applicable to teachers of other subjects. Thirdly, all participants were secondary school teachers, implying that the results might vary if primary school teachers were included.