The Effect of Information Literacy Skills on the Utilization of E-Resources: the Case of Ethiopian Civil Service University Graduate Students
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2020-09-09
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The study investigates the effect of information literacy skills to utilize e-resources in ECSU graduate students. The advancement of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and the development of an electronic database system the entire scenario of information processing, disseminating and communicating ways shifted from print to non-print format. These have provided a good opportunity for the users to access the required information timely without restricting a geographical area. However, many users are faced with different challenges to find, accesses and locate, evaluate and use the needed information from the sources due to the overabundance of electronic information, which is available on the Internet in different forms and formats. Therefore, the need for Information literacy skills has a significant role to improve as such problems. To addresses the problems the study was guided by four research questions and two hypotheses. Several studies have examined the effect of Information literacy to utilize information in a full range. To investigate the effect of Information literacy skill to utilize e-resources, this study addressed different models, which are designed by scientists, scholars, theorists, organizations, associations and individual to improve information literacy awareness, different components of information literacy skills, need of information literacy, the practice of information literacy in the context of different countries, electronic information sources and indicate strategies to enhance information literacy skills.
To conduct the study a descriptive survey was applied. The target population of the study was Ethiopian Civil Service University graduate students both College of Urban Development and Engineering, and College of Finance, Management and development, who are admitted for the 2019/2020 academic year. Stratified sampling technique was used to select 203 students from the entire population and to reach each respondent, random sampling technique was applied. To collect the data from the respondents two hundred three (203) copies of questionnaire were administrated and for analysis one hundred sixty-five (165) questionnaire was used. The data for the study analyzed with SPSS tool and analyzed using descriptive analysis, independent t-test and correlation coefficient. After then, the four research questions were answered and two hypotheses were tested at 0.05 levels of significance.
The finding of the study revealed that, the level of Information literacy skills for CUDE college students was mean score X=2.44 and for CFMAD college students was X =2.40, this indicates that they have low level Information literacy skills. And also, their level of skills between the two colleges was determined using independent t-test and the results were indicated that there is no a significant difference were existed among to them. To utilize e-resources ECSU graduate students were encountered different problems, according to the investigation, they possess poor searching, locating and accessing, evaluating and using skills. As well as they didn’t aware for different type of information literacy skills such as tool
literacy, network literacy and digital literacy. To acquire information literacy skills, they used the university library training (N=17;47.2%), guidance from library staff (N=10,27.7%), faculty (N=7; 19.4%) and formal education (N=2, 5.5%) respectively. This indicates the university library has a responsibility to deliver the training for the students. The other results found in this study, students’ information literacy skills and their use of electronic information sources have a positive and strong significant relationship (r=0.945; df = 163; (P<0.05).
In this digital age, without Information literacy skill accessing a relevant electronic information from the sources is impossible because of that within a couple seconds a huge amount of information are loaded on the Internet. Due to the quantity and the diversity of the information is a challenge for the users its’ quality, authenticity, validity, and reliability. Therefore, to maximize the utilization electronic resources the need of information literacy competencies is mandatory in every level of education.
Description
Keywords
Effect of Information, Literacy Skills, Utilization, E-Resources, Case of Ethiopian Civil Service University